


Molotov Cocktails for Two

by jacenbren



Series: Wasteland, Baby! Saga [DISCONTINUED INDEFINITELY] [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game), Voltron: Legendary Defender, Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, BAMF Luke Skywalker, Blood and Injury, Dark Magic, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Hawkfrost is a little shit, Head Injury, Heavy Angst, IN SPACE!, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Insanity, M/M, Mapleshade is back and this time it’s personal, Mild Sexual Content, Original Character(s), Past Relationship(s), Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Prosthesis, The Force, be warned it’s much darker than the first installment in this series, part two of this bullshit idea that literally no one asked for, that should really be a tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 32
Words: 53,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22456588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacenbren/pseuds/jacenbren
Summary: Well, everything’s a mess. That’s the simplest way to put it.Jean is having problems. After discovering his strange new abilities, he’s been trying to figure out which way he wants to take his destiny. It’s hard with the death of his last surviving childhood friend weighing on him.Leo’s grasping at straws. His boss, who isn’t particularly pleased with his recent failure, is threatening to put a bounty on his head. Not ideal, given that he has a plan to win back her trust involving a very dangerous, powerful, and half insane channeler.The universe is in great danger. Evil is waking up. A group of uncooperative, traumatized individuals being the only ones capable of stopping it.Again, what could possibly go wrong?(I highly suggest you read Wasteland, Baby! first because otherwise you won’t understand anything)
Relationships: Aiden/Jesse (Minecraft), Lukas/Original Male Character, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Wasteland, Baby! Saga [DISCONTINUED INDEFINITELY] [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579873
Kudos: 2





	1. Rude Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> PART TWO IS IN PRODUCTION BITCHES

Jean woke to a pair of steely blue eyes regarding him coldly. 

He shrieked in surprise and floundered backwards, his legs tangling in his bedsheets. Then he fell face-first on the floor, and of course, he was wearing nothing but a threadbare tank top and undershorts. 

He flinched when the motion strained the still-sore injuries from a few days ago. 

“Oh, good,” Luke said. “You’re awake.”

In two days that had followed his rude awakening, Jean had been sitting in a festering pool of his own guilt. It was against the law to drink alcohol in the hospital, and Jean was still injured from his battle with Mapleshade (and he’d been banned from leaving since he’d snuck out as soon as he could walk and drank until he passed out and had subsequently had to be carried back), so he wasn’t able to drink at all. 

Which left him to his only other coping mechanism: Scratching himself until he bled, which wasn’t very hard. 

During wartime, he’d adapted to the harsh reality of death, quickly learning to shove any emotions down deep so they wouldn’t get in the way. The only time he ever let it out when he was absolutely certain he was safe, which was almost never. 

So after the Great Galactic War had ended, when all his pain and trauma had finally been let loose, he’d had a complete mental breakdown.

Leaving him in a vicious cycle of drinking and simmering in his guilt. 

Now, he didn’t know what he’d do after this new war that he’d started ended, if he managed to survive it. 

He’d learned about what had happened. 

Apparently, Jesse was the most powerful channeler in recorded history. Not only that, but he was connected to the White Lion, a dangerous and volatile spirit at best, and Mapleshade had been corrupting his power and speeding up his mental decay. He’d then lost control and gone nuclear, killing Phoebe (who’d tried to calm him down) and wiping out the entire downtown area of Anchorage. 

No one knew what had happened to him, and as far as anyone knew he was still AWOL. Likely dead. 

Now, Jean had someone who was supposedly a Jedi Knight staring at him while he poured hot chocolate mix into his pitch-black coffee. 

“We need you in the lab,” Luke remarked, stirring his drink. “Olivia needs blood samples from Andrew. Every time she brings out a needle, he freaks out. Even Lee can’t calm him down, and Jacob tried but it didn’t work. You need to stop by, because Olivia can’t attach his new arm if he doesn’t have the right anesthesia and blood transfusions.”

Jean let out a heavy sigh. 

“Fine,” he muttered. “For Andrew’s sake, not yours.”

Luke scoffed. 

“I like you,” he remarked. “You don’t take people’s shit, and you can fight. If you wanna hang out, feel free.”

Jean rolled his eyes.

———

Olivia’s lab was impressive. 

It was a room the size of an airplane hangar, cluttered with assorted tools and unfinished projects. A small lab area had been cleaned out in the corner, and there, sitting on a cot and eating a lollipop, was Andrew. He was dressed in clean white sweats and looking very agitated as Olivia, the head scientist (an alternate reality version of his late friend Oona), swabbed the back of his neck with an alcohol pad. 

“Hold still,” Lee, who was standing next to the cot. “She isn’t gonna drug or hurt you, man.”

“I know!” Andrew snapped. “I know it’s irrational! I’m sorry!”

“No,” Lee sighed, exhausted. “Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault you’re so traumatized that needles make you freak out. Just don’t—“

“Jean!” Andrew yelped. “Olivia keeps trying to stick me with a—“

“Luke told me,” Jean grumbled. 

He wasn’t sure he knew how to comfort someone with such a morbid fear of medical equipment. 

“I don’t know how to handle this!” Andrew fretted anxiously, his face pale with fear. “I just… needles terrify me, Jean. Like, if somebody tries to stick me and I see it coming my fight or flight reflex kicks in because…”

“Don’t think about why,” Jean sighed. “It just makes it worse.”

Andrew nodded, still fidgeting. 

“Okay,” Olivia grumbled, brushing her box braids out of the way and prepping the needle. “For the  _ fourth _ time. I’m gonna draw your blood now.”

Andrew went rigid, eyes squeezed shut, muttering something incoherently. 

Olivia moved forward with the needle.

Andrew’s eyes snapped open.

The needle went flying, as well as the rest of the blood-drawing equipment. 

A few seconds of awkward silence. 

“I told you drawing from the vein in his neck is a really bad idea,” Lee sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, I can’t draw from anywhere else because the ones in his  _ remaining _ arm aren’t healthy enough,” Olivia grumbled, retrieving her equipment and readjusting the eyepatch on her left eye. “Besides, the vein back there looks like it’s adapted to needle injections, which makes it an easier job. You guys were in a lot of radiation back there and it’s effing with my tools. Lemme get another needle so we can try again.”

Jean winced. 

Andrew had told him about his terrifying history with needles and the trauma he associated with doctors and medical equipment in general. Said trauma had barely begun to mend in the seven and a half years since his… incident. 

He wasn’t going to be able to stay very calm around needles anytime soon. 

“Do you want me to sedate you, or something?” Olivia grumbled. “I’m down for whatever, as long as you sit still.”

Lee made a face, and Andrew tensed. 

Jean heaved a sigh. 

“You wanna hold my hand?” He offered, ignoring the loud clattering sound and rather creative cursing as Olivia dropped the fluid collection bag (“DAMN my awful shitty depth perception!”) and scrambled after the fallen tubes. 

Andrew hesitated, but accepted it. 

“Okay,” Lee said, laying a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. “Deep breaths, in and out. You know that we wouldn’t let anyone hurt you.”

Jean had to resist laughing at that. If anyone could take care of themselves, it was definitely Andrew. He’d once watched the guy rip a door off its hinges by accident. 

But he squeezed Andrew’s hand, wishing he could project some kind of soothing emotions onto him. 

“There we go, needle’s in. Now we just have to wait for about a minute.”

Jean jumped at Olivia’s voice. 

Andrew visibly flinched, squeezing his eyes shut, teeth clenched, as if he was bracing himself for some terrible pain. 

“Imagine something calming,” Lee broke in. “Deep, slow breaths.”

Andrew let out a strangled squeak.

Jean frowned. 

There was something strange about what had just happened. When he’d imagined something soothing (sitting peacefully on the porch swing at sunset back at his cabin), Andrew had definitely relaxed a bit. 

Now… 

Jean called back the calming imagery, mentally projecting the emotions on Andrew. 

The tense grip on his hand slackened almost imperceptibly.

But he knew that somehow, Andrew had  _ calmed down _ simply from something Jean had imagined, and he had no idea in hell how it had happened. 

“There we go,” Olivia said. “All done, man. You did great.”

Jean opened his eyes, and sure enough, Olivia had taken the needle out and the fluid collection bag was full.

Andrew blinked. 

“Okay, that was bizarre,” he blurted out, eyes flitting around nervously. “I was on a porch swing, and I didn’t even notice… wait, Jean, did  _ you _ do that?”

Olivia’s eye lit up.

“Uhm,” Lee said. “Why… why are you grinning like that?”

Olivia’s smirk grew, and Jean suddenly felt an urge to turn and run before she attacked him with dozens of different gadgets. 

When she spoke next, he kind of wished that he had. 

“Luke was right,” she said excitedly, rummaging around in a bin and pulling out a random tool. “Holy shit, that crazy twink bastard was right! You are!”

“I’m what?” Jean demanded, trying to push down his growing fear. 

Usually, from his experience, whenever Oona had gotten that particular gleam in her eyes, that meant she’d found something she referred to as really cool.

Or in other words incredibly dangerous. 

“You’re Force-sensitive,” Luke’s voice came from the doorway. 

They all jumped. 

“Jesus, would you  _ stop doing that?” _ Lee snapped, glaring at the other man. 

Luke just hummed thoughtfully from where he was leaning against the doorframe with an intrigued expression on his face as he ate a hot pocket.

Jean paused. 

_ Force-sensitive. _

The only other Force-sensitive people he’d ever met were the Skywalker twins from  _ his _ reality. Frankly, the Luke he’d known, the prince of Alderaan, hadn’t been nearly strong enough with the Force to teach anyone. And Leia, the only actual Jedi he’d ever met, had died while he was on Archidae.

Jean had never learned much about the Force, much less how to wield it. 

“What the fuck?” He blurted. 

He was feeling a lot of emotions right now that he didn’t care for Luke being able to sense. 

“You ever wonder why you were so good at bullshitting your way out of things before you switched your default to ‘punch?’” Luke asked, shoving the last of his hot pocket in his mouth. “You ever wonder why you can win arguments? Win impossible battles? Jump higher and move faster than average, even before the healing nanites came into play? Finish a mission while you’re badly wounded and can hardly walk? That’s the Force, buddy.”

Jean frantically thought back throughout the years, realizing that Luke was right. 

Before he’d started stabbing first and asking questions later, he had been a remarkably good liar. And he’d always had a natural battle prowess, and he’d always been one of the fastest kids at recess. 

And then, when he’d saved Andrew and kept Mapleshade from killing him. Once by blasting his cage open without even touching the bars and somehow getting his sword to fly into his hand, and twice by stopping her scimitar midair merely by thinking about it. 

Which was impressive, considering he’d been running on nothing but instincts and pure adrenaline. 

As much as he hated to think about it, Luke was making a lot of sense. 

Which was terrifying. 

“No,” he snapped, fear getting the better of him. “I can’t be. I can’t be like you, that’s not possible.”

Luke heaved a sigh. 

“Look,” he huffed. “This is a gift, kid. You either use it, or you let it go to waste and you die. Besides, rebuilding the Jedi Order is kinda my job, and you’re the closest I’ve come to finding—“

“NO!” Jean snarled.

This was too much to handle. 

He didn’t want more power. 

He just wanted this fight to be over. 

There was a loud  _ crack _ and fizzling sparks, and a lamp ripped off one wall. 

It crashed onto a workbench and set it on fire. 

Olivia shrieked, scrambling backwards, and Andrew hastily jumped off the medical cot and shoved Lee behind him. 

Then the sprinklers came on in that area, dousing the blaze. 

Awkward silence followed.

Jean felt a sinking feeling. 

“That,” Luke said, his tone annoyingly smug and self-satisfactory, “was the Force.”


	2. An Unwanted Mission

Almost immediately after the incident, Andrew was taken in for surgery to replace his arm, and Jean was sent to get dressed, armed, and go to the war room for briefing, which was currently empty. 

He was feeling… conflicted about the whole  _ Force-sensitive  _ mess. 

Thankfully, there was a bottle of whiskey on the end table next to one of the couches, which assuaged Jean’s mood. 

The war room didn’t really  _ look _ like a war room. It was more of a comfortable lounge with a holotable in the center, overstuffed couches and armchairs surrounding it, and a taxidermied leopard head was hanging on the wall above the end table above the coffee machine and whiskey. 

Jean squinted. 

Who taxidermied something to have its eyes closed like that?

Then the leopard head opened its eyes and yawned loudly, snuffling at Jean’s hair, and he jumped, wrenching out his hunting knife. 

“That’s just Seymour,” a voice said. 

Jean spun around, and for the first few seconds he thought Phoebe had somehow come back from the dead. 

But then he saw the woman’s scarred face, short hair, and her battered metal arm. 

She still looked vaguely familiar. 

“Who the hell are you?” Jean snapped. 

“Call me Red,” the woman sighed, taking the whiskey bottle and pouring herself a glass. Then she reached up and scratched the leopard head behind the ears. “Heya, Seymour. How’s it?”

Seymour the leopard head growled and leaned into her hand. 

“How is it…” Jean stammered. 

Red chuckled. 

“A friend of Luke’s gave him to us for safekeeping,” she said, opening a tin on the table (which was full of mini sausages) and holding one up to Seymour, who devoured it happily. “Awhile ago, they were dealing with some… ah, problems, and they needed us to watch some of their stuff. Seymour here liked it so much here, though, that he didn’t want to leave. So they let us keep him.”

“Huh,” Jean replied.

An awkward beat of silence followed. 

Red looked strange. She was much paler than Phoebe and even taller than Petra (meaning she was at  _ least  _ 6’ 2”), which was a little irritating for Jean, who barely cleared five foot eight. The yellow flight jacket she wore looked almost too small, and her jeans were cuffed, probably because they were too short for her legs and exposed about two and a half inches of her shins above her worn blue converse sneakers. 

Her hair, a much lighter red that Phoebe’s had been, barely brushed her shoulders, and her eyes were pale, icy blue. And then there was a sizable patch of scar tissue of her right cheek, and—

“That’s why you look familiar,” Jean blurted. “You trained in the Dark Forest. I think you might’ve been the one to kick my ass when Thistleclaw told me to climb up there and try to keep everybody else from dragging me off.”

Red scowled. “I don’t like remembering.”

“Huh,” Jean sighed, sipping his whiskey and cautiously scratching Seymour behind his ears. 

The leopard head growled and nuzzled his hand affectionately, closing its eyes. 

Red chuckled. “He likes you.”

Jean laughed halfheartedly. 

“I’ve kinda… not been fond of cats for a while though,” he sighed. “Ever since I got manipulated into becoming a psychotic killing machine by a deranged cat demon with a serious crazy ex complex. Not a fun six months for me.”

Red froze. 

“Me too!” She said, a startled look on her face. “The bitch manipulated me into becoming her brainwashed attack dog, and I lost my arm when she was using my friend’s ex for her plan! Did you by chance go to a planet called Archidae and meet weird cat people and—“

“—Fall in love with Hollyleaf and then trigger a civil war in FjordClan?” Jean cut her off, shocked.

Now that they were talking, he realized their lives had been nearly identical, which meant that  _ her  _ Jesse and Phoebe might have, too.

“Is your Jesse alive?” He asked. 

“Yeah,” Red said, reproach creeping into her voice. “As far as I know, he’s on Altea with his boyfriend, who seriously creeps me the fuck out. That idiot hasn’t visited me in too long, and it’s pissing me off.”

“I heard,” Jean sighed. 

Personally, the idea of dating any version of Hawkfrost made him shudder. Even when the man had often vouched for him in the Dark Forest, and when he’d defected to the Alliance, Jean still didn’t fully trust him. 

No, it wasn’t because he was one of the children of Tigerstar, it was because he was a pathological liar and a master manipulator. Not as bad as Mapleshade, though, given that he clearly showed remorse at the crimes he had committed in his old life and had reconnected and reconciled with his siblings, but he just had a very shifty and untrustworthy aura about him. 

After all, he was also a notorious kleptomaniac and had a habit of being irritatingly passive-aggressive. 

Just then, the door opened. 

Jean felt his hopes plunging. 

There he was, exactly the man he’d been thinking about, with an excited grin on his face. He was flanked by Luke, who just looked annoyed, and Petra, who looked excited. 

“Well then!” This version of Hawkfrost exclaimed, rubbing his hands together, his eyes (which were blue instead of amber. Also, he had blue Altean markings under his eyes instead of Dark Forest tattoos, which was odd) glinting deviously. “You look very much like my mate! Anyhow, we may as well get started.”

———

“Our mission,” Luke said, tapping on the image of a planet floating above the holotable, “is Ilum. I need a new kyber crystal to build a new lightsaber, and Jean here needs to make his.”

“I thought the First Order destroyed Ilum,” Jean blurted out. 

He  _ really  _ didn’t want to use a lightsaber in combat. The last time he had, he’d lost his right arm, and he didn’t feel like repeating the process. 

Luke nodded. “That’s why we’re transversing to another reality where it still exists.”

Jean flinched. 

Petra, who had chosen a couch and sprawled across it, cleared her throat. 

“Why do  _ I  _ have to come?”

“Because you’re one of the best fighters we know,” Luke replied, shooting her a look. “And you’ll be able to guard the entrance of the temple, since the only Ilum I could find already has the Empire on it. Fair warning, Ilum is Hoth on steroids, so bundle up. Jean, are you familiar with assembling weapons?”

Jean nodded reluctantly.

“Good,” Luke said. “My  _ friend _ Hawkfrost is coming as well to help out,  _not_ to steal everybody’s shoelaces. We leave first thing tomorrow, so be ready. Red, have you picked your team to look for Jesse?”

Red nodded. “Beau and Lukas.”

Hawkfrost gasped dramatically, clapping a hand over his chest. “You didn’t even consider  _ me,  _ your dear friend?”

Luke gave Hawkfrost a pointed glare. 

Hawkfrost flashed a toothy grin and a cheerful thumbs-up. 

Jean rolled his eyes. 

He didn’t like anything about this trip, but he couldn’t quite figure out why. Still, something told him that he had to go, regardless of his opinion. 

Even though he had a cold feeling in his gut that kept nagging him that he couldn’t explain. 

He sighed heavily. 

“There a problem?” Luke asked, his eyebrows quirking. 

“No,” Jean muttered. 

He had a very bad feeling about this.


	3. Visions of Darkness

Leo didn’t give himself the luxury of caring about people. 

It had been years since he’d last had a real friend. He preferred not to think about it, and he  _ definitely  _ wasn’t trying to find new ones, you know, with his deadly line of work and his quest for vengeance getting in the way. He’d spent years fighting his way through different realities, working as Mapleshade’s mercenary. That tended to drive away most sentients with any degree of common sense whatsoever. 

Leo didn’t have common sense. 

Pretty much just cold fury at this point. 

Just then, a muffled explosion shook the ground from behind a giant metal sheet, and then a person-shaped hole melted through it. 

Leo jumped. 

He’d gotten much more sensitive to sound and touch after he’d gotten his face ripped open in a fight years ago and had subsequently lost sight in his left eye.

Was something going to collapse?

And then Jesse toppled out, a mortified expression on his face. 

“Shit,” he blurted. “I hope I didn’t destabilize any walkways. It feels like absolutely  _ nothing _ on this goddamn planet is OSHA-compliant.”

Leo glanced behind him, pulling his goggles over his eyes and scanning the stress points of the Old Republic-era battle cruiser they were currently climbing on the way to somewhere where it was safe to transverse realities again. They’d been stuck on this shipbreaking world Bracca now for three days, trying to find somewhere where the ground was stable enough to withstand the magnetic and quantum warping that opening a portal would cause, and the stupid planet felt like a never-ending junkyard. 

Leo swore that as long as he lived, he was  _ never  _ setting foot on Bracca again. 

Meanwhile, Jesse, his new acquaintance who’d attempted to kill him several times before he’d had a sort of magic-influenced mental breakdown and lost most of his memory, was having his own problems. Holding back the searing white fire that his body seemed barely capable of containing put lots of stress on him, and the poor guy had already almost died several times due to his body either melting or burning through most surfaces if he didn’t pay close enough attention. 

Leo almost felt bad for him. 

Unfortunately, Jesse was the crux of his plan to win back Mapleshade’s trust, and he’d have to turn him in to her anyway, so Leo knew he couldn’t afford to get emotionally attached. 

Even though Jesse seemed to be a pretty okay guy when he wasn’t disassociating or screaming hysterically in his sleep. 

Leo lowered his goggles once the scan was complete, scowling. 

“You didn’t damage anything,” he huffed.

Jesse looked visibly relieved. 

They kept climbing. 

———

When they finally made it to a hovertrain station, Jesse immediately set a garbage can on fire. 

Leo rolled his eyes, watching as the white-hot flames consumed the disposal bin and sent workers scattering for cover in alarm, and finally someone hooked up a hose and doused it. 

“Sorry,” Jesse said, anxiously wringing his hands. “I had to hold a whole lot in while we were climbing.”

Leo sighed. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, concentrating hard, then slashing his hand down. 

A portal appeared. 

Jesse let out a sigh of relief as they stepped into the space between realities. 

If there was one thing that was odd, it was probably how Jesse’s eyes glowed a pupil-less bright white. The spiderweb patterns for cracks in his skin glowed the same color, the brightness varying depending on his mood. 

It was slightly disturbing, especially that one night when Leo had woken up to a pair of ghostly white eyes hovering above him in the darkness of pre-dawn. 

Now  _ that  _ had been a terrifying experience. He hadn’t needed caffeine to wake him up that morning. 

Leo quickly looked down at Breezepelt’s quantum tracker. He had to scrub that particular almost-heart attack out of his mind, or he’d probably die of terror. 

“Where’re we going next?”

Leo glanced over at Jesse, who was currently standing several feet above him, his body glowing. 

Wait, he wasn’t standing, he was  _ hovering,  _ a goofy grin on his face. 

Leo rolled his eyes. Well, it wasn’t like he could tell Jesse to stop, since this was one of the few places he could safely release the energy that his body could barely contain. 

“Get down from there,” he called. “We need to enter this one that’s next to me, because it says Petra’s here.”

Jesse dropped down, grimacing as his glow dimmed. 

Then they headed into the light, and landed in a desert. 

And of course, this reality had snakes the size of VW microbuses, which didn’t exactly go over well. 

By sundown, after four long hours of trudging through the desert, escaping from hostile wind spirits and two of the monstrous serpents (Jesse accidentally set one of them on fire and Leo shot the other’s head full of arrows), Leo was ready for a long nap. 

Frankly, it got cold at night in a desert. 

Jesse, of course, was still burning with invisible fire, so Leo tried to lull himself to sleep by watching the sand under him slowly melting into glass. 

He shivered, scooting closer to Jesse, trying to absorb some of his heat. 

Finally he drifted off.

———

_ Leo had had strangely lucid dreams all his life. Ever since he was a kid, he’d gotten glimpses of the future, and he’d even foreseen the death of his own mother and his former boyfriend that way. He still remembered waking up at the sleepover in fifth grade, screaming hysterically about the horrible nightmare of his mom’s car skidding off the road, and when he’d jolted awake in his bed on his nineteenth birthday, gasping like a fish from that dream of a faceless stranger firing an arrow into Anthony’s throat. _

_ Frankly, it was a blessing and a curse, because it was hard to distinguish between what was real and what was just a figment of his imagination.  _

_ Guilt was common for him.  _

_ Anthony was the only person he’d ever told about his strange ability, and he was long gone for reasons Leo had tried to bury away in the darkest corner of his conscience.  _

_ His guilty, blood-drenched conscience.  _

_ Now, he was pretty sure he was having another of his dreams, and this one was one of the more disturbing ones.  _

_ It started off in a tomb.  _

_ He glanced around. A redheaded young man was kneeling in a meditative position on the floor, still and silent.  _

_ Then his eyes jerked open and he screamed, scrambling backwards. _

_ A voice spiraled through the darkness as cracks ran up and down the walls of the tomb, glowing yellow.  _

You aren’t meant to be a Jedi. You’re not good enough for it. 

_ Somewhere in the distance, a lion roared, and in a flash of yellow light, the dream changed. _

_ This was a moldy swamp that reeked of death and fear and pain, the only light coming from glowing fungi on the leafless, rotting trees.  _

_ Leo knew this place well. He’d been here countless times in his dreams, receiving orders from Mapleshade and occasionally training for battle with the… ah,  _ permanent  _ residents.  _

_ The Place of No Stars, the grim, unforgiving afterlife of the dishonored dead of the StarClan religion. _

_ Fear shot through him.  _

_ Had Mapleshade found out he was keeping a valuable asset without telling her? Was she going to finish him off? _

_ But then he realized he was still dreaming, not astral-projecting.  _

_ He sighed in relief.  _

_ Thank god he was just dreaming of the Dark Forest and not  _ actually  _ among them. He was sure most of the permanent residents thought he was either dead or an enemy, after his expulsion.  _

_ However, when he merely dreamed of this place, they were always precognitive, which was a silver lining that he’d never expected to discover.  _

_ Maybe it was how the powerful dark energy of the place affected the living.  _

_ Then he heard voices.  _

_ “I don’t get it! There’s something happening that the Bird isn’t telling us, Maggottail. We need to find out what it is before she ends up almost destroying everything! Again!” _

_ Leo quickly turned, and saw a short, stocky man with a mess of dark russet striped hair held back in a bushy ponytail. His eyes, pitch black with glowing orange slitted pupils, were wide with fear, and there was a massive scar over his throat that glowed bright red.  _

_ Leo recognized him.  _

_ It was Redwillow.  _

_ Redwillow had been part of Snowtuft’s resistance movement, he recalled from Mapleshade’s teaching, a small group of the Risen who didn’t want vengeance, who just wanted to live out the rest of their punishment in peace.  _

_ Huh, apparently they’d gone back here after getting killed a second time.  _

_ Now, the other man was terrifying to look at. His body was bent and twisted, horrific wounds that refused to heal covering his body so thickly that you could hardly tell what color his hair or his skin was, especially with the fungi and moss that was growing in his greying, wrinkled flesh.  _

_ Leo grimaced.  _

_ Maggottail was by far the oldest surviving spirit in the Place of No Stars, even older than Snowtuft (who had died at fifteen but was currently almost four hundred years old). There wasn’t a single Felus alive that knew his story, or even how old he was, but the most widely accepted guess of his age was around a thousand years.  _

_ Maggottail grunted, shifting in the nest in the roots of a rotting tree stump.  _

_ “I’m too old for this,” he grumbled.  _

_ Redwillow winced. “Listen,” he said anxiously. “Thistleclaw’s back, and he was raving about getting killed again by a blue lion, but I can’t speculate  _ how  _ the Crux could have returned! We need you to help pull the resistance back together, because if Mapleshade raises us all it’s gonna be the Killing all over again!” _

Killing?

_ Leo knew  _ about _ the war, but not much of the details.  _

_ Maggottail huffed.  _

_ “You young ones need to figure out that molly yourselves and leave me alone. I can’t resolve everything for you.” _

_ Then, without warning, the scene dissolved again.  _

_ Leo yelped.  _

_ He was back in the throne room on the  _ Avenger, _ and Mapleshade was sitting on the polished black marble seat, a cruel smirk on her face and that glowing silver scimitar in her hand.  _

_ “Are you trying usurp my authority?” _

_ “N—no,” Leo blurted.  _

_ He’d be lying if he said that Mapleshade didn’t scare him. She scared  _ everyone. 

_ “Bring me Jesse,” she hissed. “As soon as possible, Leo Parker. It would be a real shame if I had to send out warriors and hunt you down and bring him in myself.” _

_ Leo flinched back. He realized he was beginning to wake up.  _

_ “Don’t disappoint me,” Mapleshade hissed, baring her teeth and shapeshifting into a mangy calico cat.  _

“LEO! LEO, WAKE UP! SHIT!”

Leo blinked, jolting back to consciousness. Shit, how long had he been sleeping for?

He yelped and rolled away in the sand in surprise when he spotted Jesse roughly twenty yards away, blazing like a furnace and trying to wrestle away from a massive blue dragon, its hide crackling with electricity and glittering in the light of the morning sun. 

Jesse, meanwhile, was between its teeth, screaming and throwing fire. 

Leo gulped. 

That thing’s scales were too thick to pierce with arrows, and Jesse’s strength would only hold out so long before he either passed out or literally exploded… 

Jesse cried out in pain and accidentally vaporized a tooth. 

The dragon snarled. 

Then, out of nowhere, a man floundered out of the dunes, waving a set of bagpipes with a wild look on his face, his eyes concealed by heavily tinted goggles. 

“Mom!” He shrieked. “Put the guy down!”

The blue dragon huffed and dropped Jesse, growling. 

Leo let out a sigh of relief, then took a few moments to wonder what the hell the guy meant by  _ mom.  _

“Who the hell are you?” He demanded.

Should the guy attack, would his bow work at this range?

Luckily, the guy just grinned. 

“Quentin Adair,” he said brightly. “This is my mom, Empress Azulite. What brings you two to the Northern Sand Wastes?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You’ll be seeing a lot of stuff from Leo’s perspective now since I’ve always wanted to write from the perspective of an antagonist because it adds to the drama
> 
> Anyway enjoy


	4. Dining With Dragons

Leo had to admit, dragon riding was a completely new and terrifying experience. 

Jesse, on the other hand, was obviously enjoying himself. 

Leo couldn’t figure out how. 

He was too busy clinging to Empress Azulite’s scales and trying to convince himself that they weren’t really hundreds of feet in the air to really think about it. 

By the time they landed at the entrance to a cave in the hillside (almost two hours later), he was sure he was going to have a heart attack. 

“Note to self,” he muttered. “Dragons fly really high. Don’t ride dragons.”

Then the dragon lead them into a shockingly large cavern with geode-like walls, filled with an incomprehensible amount of gold, jewels, and other wealth. 

“Woah,” Jesse mumbled. 

Then he accidentally melted a pile of gold coins into a gold puddle. 

The dragon huffed in annoyance. 

“So…” Leo began, trying to figure out how to approach this. “What planet are we on, uh… Quentin, was it?”

He got a good look at the man who’d slid off the dragon’s head. He was about average height, slender and pale. His hair was a strange purple color that was so dark it was almost black, and his eyes were also a similar odd purple, now that he’d removed those dark goggles. 

His outfit was odd, too: A set of light metal armor over a simple shirt and pants, both made of light cotton cloth, and some well-made leather boots. 

Leo stifled a curse. 

Did this planet not have any space-age settlements on it?

“Quentin, yeah,” the guy said. “You’re on Gygax. You look like you belong in that group of spacies we’re helping out. Did you crash, too?”

Leo paused. 

“No,” he said. “Is there a way to get off the planet?”

Quentin snorted. “Nah. Unless you persuade the other spacies to give you a lift when they repair their ship. That’s what we call off-worlders here. Spacies.”

Leo cursed. 

“What’re those glasses for?” Jesse asked, frowning. 

“Oh, these?” Quentin said, holding up his dark glasses. “They keep me from getting my eyes hurt during the day. I’m half drow, so I’m sensitive to light, but I’m pretty good at magic.”

Leo didn’t know what a drow was, but he didn’t bother asking. 

“You think you could cast some kind of cooling spell on Jesse?” He asked. “He kinda has a fire problem.”

There was a loud crash. 

Leo glanced over at Jesse. 

Apparently, he must’ve been leaning on a human-sized golden vase, because the neck of said vase was laying on the floor, dripping and steaming, and Jesse was on the ground, looking alarmed.

An awkward beat of silence followed. 

Quentin made a face. “Shit, mom might kick my ass for breaking that vase. Glowing guy, c’mere.”

Then, one of the weirdest things Leo had ever seen in his entire life happened. 

Quentin slung the set of bagpipes off his shoulder, and started playing a bagpipe rendition of  _ Ice Ice Baby. _

Leo just listened in fascinated horror. 

After about two minutes (which felt like six hours), a cool blue aura settled around Jesse’s shoulders like a semi-tangible cloak. 

Jesse sighed in relief. “Oh, thank you so much. That’s a  _ lot  _ better.”

Leo shuddered. 

He never wanted to hear that ever again. 

Quentin smirked. “Glad I could help. The spell wears off after maybe three days, or two. I can’t remember. Now, we gotta eat something, you guys. My mom’s a great cook.”

———

Lunch was a confusing affair. 

Leo glanced at the the six dragonets, each the size of a car, ripping into a massive animal carcass. 

“These are my adoptive siblings,” Quentin said proudly. “Lightning! Pearl! Turquoise! Diamond! Tempest! Sandstorm! We have company!”

Leo cringed. 

He wasn’t sure what to make of this strange dragon family, especially when the baby dragons perked up. 

Jesse, however, laughed as three of them raced over and started enthusiastically sniffing and nuzzling him like he was a human-sized chew toy. 

Leo gulped, realizing the other three were eyeing him. 

Then he was hit by a flurry of scales and enthusiastically squirming reptilian bodies, and yelped in pain as a clawed foot hit him in an unsavory spot. 

“Yeah, hi,” he squeaked, patting their large noses. “Hello. Nice to meet you. Ow, watch the feet.”

Then all six dragonets went back to their carcass. 

Then, Quentin, still laughing, led them to a dining table made of pure gold that had eight places set. 

“Mom’s a shapeshifter,” he said. “She learned how to turn into a human when she was six-hundred-and-twenty-eight.”

Sure enough, a tall, dark-skinned woman with strange, dark reptilian eyes was sitting regally at the head of the table, dressed in pale blue silks and jewels, her curly hair adorned with a golden crown practically dripping with sapphires and other gems. 

“Sit,” she urged. 

Jesse dropped down in his seat immediately, but Leo paused, examining his seat for traps.  _ Then  _ he sat down, eyeing the Empress suspiciously. 

Then, food magically appeared on his plate, and wine in his cup. 

“Wow,” Jesse remarked, his mouth already full. “This food is great. What’s your secret?”

The Empress smiled, but there was no warmth in it. 

Leo slowly reached for his sword. 

“I roast it with electricity,” she said, spreading butter on her bread. “Not fire because it burns too easily.”

Leo cautiously started to eat, keeping one eye on the dragon Empress’s hands. He’d had too many bad experiences with dragons, and he didn’t like the thought of eating with one.

He chewed his meat. 

Wow, it  _ did  _ taste amazing. 

He glanced suspiciously at Quentin, who was polishing a knife. 

Quentin arched his eyebrows flirtatiously. 

Leo scowled, flustered. 

Okay, yeah, Quentin  _ was  _ attractive, and Leo was getting a  _ notorious ladies’ man _ vibe from him. If he’d seen him in a bar, Leo had a feeling he’d probably attempt to pick Quentin up for the night. 

But Leo couldn’t afford to get sidetracked, not with the plan he had. 

So he glared at him threateningly. 

Quentin just scoffed in amusement and went back to his food. 

Then Leo heard footsteps, and several voices, all talking to each other, and then four people trotted in; two humans, an alien, and… huh, was that a Nightsister?

But then he saw the second human. 

His red hair, pale face nicked by scars, dark, moss-green eyes. A perfect match of the man from his dream. 

“You!” He hissed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I based Quentin off a DnD character of mine so homeboy is a half-drow bard with mommy issues


	5. The Stowaway

Jean scowled. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope,” Luke remarked, tossing the helmet to him. “Put the blast shield down. Your eyes can deceive you, and without them, you’re more in tune with the Force and how to use it. Shit, I sound like Obi-Wan, don’t I?”

Jean stared at the helmet in dismay. 

They were currently on board the  _ Falcon _ in another reality, shooting through hyperspace into the unknown regions to reach their destination, Ilum. To occupy themselves, Luke had pulled out a Jedi training drone for Jean to practice on. 

Jean already felt sore from those stupid shock lasers. 

He glared at the spherical drone hovering in the air, waiting for orders, its optical sensor seeming to mock him. 

And with the heavily tinted blast shield on this goddamn demolition helmet Luke wanted him to put on, he wouldn’t be able to see where he was swinging the harmless training lightsaber Luke had dug out of storage for him to use, much less deflect the shock lasers. 

“Oh, are you testing him?” Petra asked as she walked in and plopped down on the couch. “Ha, can’t wait to see him get his ass beat by the remote.”

“Fuck off,” Jean muttered. 

Petra just laughed, and Hawkfrost, who’d been here for a while, grooming himself in his cat form, was sitting in a chair with his hind leg up in the air and watching with great interest. 

He grumbled in frustration and put on the demolition helmet, and pulled down the blast shield. 

“Begin,” Luke said. 

Jean activated his training saber, dropping into a fighting stance. 

He was pretty sure he was facing the wrong way, judging from the amused chuckling coming from the direction of the couch. 

He growled in frustration. 

Without warning, pain exploded in his flesh arm. 

Jean snarled and whipped around. 

He got lucky. 

He felt another shock glance off his saber, but then two more hit him; one in his leg and the other his chest. 

He swore under his breath. 

“Focus on the Force,” Luke sighed, sounding a bit irritated. “Feel it between you and the remote.”

Jean rolled his eyes, but he took a deep breath and focused his mind, trying to place where the remote was by the quiet humming of the repulsorlifts. 

He could suddenly sense… something. 

He quickly blocked the shock, noticing the subtle change in the air as it fired, and spun, blocking two more. 

It was almost like he could see the training drone, but not with his eyes. 

It was more like…  _ feeling  _ where it was. 

“I still think it’s luck,” Hawkfrost’s voice remarked. “I’ve seen some strange things, and this wouldn’t be—“

Jean smirked as he deflected a shock at just the right angle. 

There was a startled screech as the shock hit its target, and then he heard Petra laughing. 

The funny part was that he could practically feel Luke’s amusement. 

“Oh,  _ very _ mature,” Hawkfrost hissed. 

Jean pulled off the helmet, blinking as his eyes adjusted.

Luke was holding the remote, a grin on his face. “Very good job.  _ And _ you managed to hit Hawkfrost after he made a snide comment. Your control is pretty good, for somebody who had no training before today.”

Jean paused, a bit flustered. 

Honestly, he had no idea how to respond to praise, especially when it came from the actual Luke Skywalker, who was now his… mentor? Sort of?

Hawkfrost grumbled incoherently under his breath, breaking the awkward silence.

Then Jean sensed a presence. 

Shouldn’t  _ that  _ presence be back in the medical wing of the Beacontown headquarters, recovering from arm replacement surgery?

He set down the training saber and followed it. 

He headed down the hall, and stopped at one of the floor panels, and pulled it up, effortlessly tossing it aside. 

And there, huddled in the smuggling compartment, knees tucked up to his chest, shivering in a thin sweater and a pair of cotton pants and socks over patient’s scrubs, was… 

Andrew glanced up, eyes narrowed against the bright light.

“I thought I told you not to fuck off to the middle of nowhere and get your ass kicked without telling me.”

Jean was speechless. 

“What the hell?” He blurted, helping Andrew climb out of the smuggling compartment. “You are  _ four fucking hours out of surgery!” _

He felt terrified, and rightfully so. 

Andrew’s movements were slow and jerky, especially in his new arm (a polished, dark grey vibranium model much like his own with sleek, dark grey-blue inlays on the joints), and he was clearly running on nothing but painkillers and pure stubbornness. Just climbing out of the smuggling compartment was obviously exhausting for him. 

“I’m not gonna let you get hurt out there,” Andrew huffed. “The last time you went out on your own you started a bar fight and almost lost.”

“Not true,” Jean muttered, helping Andrew limp into the lounge. “I would’ve won if that guy hadn’t twisted my arm.”

Three sets of shocked blue eyes in varying degrees of frostiness focused on them as Jean carefully set Andrew down, who grimaced and covered the seam where vibranium met his flesh, which was obviously only half-healed. 

Then Petra spoke. 

“How the hell did he get in here?”

“Don’t ask me,” Jean grumbled. “Babe, how much painkiller are you hopped up on right now? You seem… loopy.”

Andrew scowled. “I dunno. I just grabbed a handful of pills and ran.”

“And you ripped the IVs out,” Luke sighed, rolling up Andrew’s sleeve, looking irritated. “Hold still.”

Luke shut his eyes and laid his hand on the scabbed hole the needles had left. 

Then his hand began to glow. 

The blood-crusted holes sealed themselves, leaving nothing behind but a faint scar, and the glow faded away. 

Jean stared in surprise. 

Andrew blinked. “Woah. What the hell was that? My arms stopped hurting.”

Luke grimaced.

Jean winced, noticing his nose had started to bleed. 

“Jesus,” Luke muttered. “You still have radiation in you. I can’t tell if it was where you were from before or if it was the X-rays. But you should be fine, for now. God, you shouldn’t’ve been able to walk. Think things through, buddy.”

Andrew grunted. “I’m just glad I have two arms again.”

Hawkfrost sniffed him. He narrowed his eyes. “You smell bad. Who in the name of StarClan are you, anyway?”

Then Jean remembered Hawkfrost hadn’t net Andrew yet.

“Hawkfrost, this is Andrew,” he said, resting a hand on Andrew’s newly healed forearm. “He’s my—“

“Boyfriend,” Andrew finished. 

“Good to meet you,” Hawkfrost said cheerfully. “Wow, what happened to your arm?”

Jean saw Andrew flinch. Now that was a touchy subject. 

“Kinda lost it,” he muttered. 

“It’s a long story,” Jean quickly cut in. “He doesn’t like talking about it.”

“Ah,” Hawkfrost remarked. “A traumatizing event that tore away your childhood innocence and left you horribly scarred both inside and out?”

Awkward silence. 

Luke shot a glare at Hawkfrost. 

Then a monitor beeped.

“Oh, looks like we’re coming out of hyperspace,” Luke said. “C’mon. All of you, cockpit. Now.”

Jean waited until everyone else had left before he tugged Andrew into the hall. 

“We need to talk,” he said. 

Andrew looked a little uncomfortable. 

“About what?”

Jean sighed. 

“Look, you can’t keep risking your life like this,” he said. “I know you’re scared about something happening to me, but you can’t just sneak out of the hospital right after surgery like that! What if something went wrong?”

Andrew scowled. “Don’t underestimate me, Jean. I’ve _fought_ my way out of much worse, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something bad were to happen to you, okay?”

Jean gritted his teeth in frustration. 

“You don’t get it!” He snapped. “You can’t just ignore your own self-preservation! You could hardly walk before Luke healed you! You should be resting!”

“But you’re so fucking reckless! What if you pull some crazy shit and  _ die?” _

“It makes me feel guilty, okay?” Jean hissed. 

Andrew faltered. “You feel… guilty?”

“Yeah!” Jean spat, tasting the same bitter guilt in his voice. “I can’t stand watching people get hurt for me! I sure as hell don’t deserve that kindness—”

Something dangerous flashed in Andrew’s gaze. 

“Don’t say that,” he snarled. “Don’t you fucking say that, Jean Orion. I swear to god, if He isn’t already fucking dead. You deserve the world for everything you’ve been through! I don’t want you to have fend for yourself like I did, and even if it means sacrificing my health and sanity, I need to keep you safe. Not just for you, but for me. I can’t let my family die again.”

Then he whipped around and stalked away to the cockpit. 

Jean just stood there, frozen. 

He knew exactly what Andrew meant by  _ again.  _ The man had had to watch his mother slowly succumb to radiation sickness, then his two roommates that he’d found solace with during his horrific three months in PAMA’s experiments die agonizing deaths. And then he’d had to fight for his life for eight years and counting afterward.

Jean understood how Andrew felt, mostly because he’d had to go through things just as painful. 

And now, he felt torn.


	6. The Strongest Stars Have Hearts of Kyber

Ilum was officially Jean’s second least favorite planet. 

His least favorite was a tie between Mustafar and Dathomir, due to the fact that Dathomir was, well, Dathomir, and he’d lost his arm on Mustafar. 

And Ilum seemed to be nothing but a barren, windy ice bucket. 

Andrew didn’t seem affected, however, but he’d grown up in a wasteland smothered by a perpetual nuclear winter. 

And  _ cold and scary _ was probably the best way to describe Andrew in general. 

“How far away is the temple?” Jean grumbled, his feet skidding on a patch of ice. God, he  _ hated  _ this wind. 

“Almost there,” Luke called over his shoulder. “Over this bluff.”

Sure enough, Luke was right. 

Jean squinted through the freezing wind, studying the walls of the temple, standing in the ice sheets as if a massive hand had wedged the building between them. 

He had a bad feeling about this. 

———

The antechamber was cold and empty. 

“Here we are,” Luke said. “This is the entrance. Now we need to figure out how to melt that ice.”

Jean frowned at the frozen sheet of ice over the doorway that obviously led down to the kyber caves. He wondered if he could summon—

Petra pulled out her sword and quickly sliced a hole in the ice. 

“There we go.”

Jean stared at her sword. He wished he could get something like that. 

Luke scoffed. “Seriously?”

“What?” Petra demanded, waving her arms indignantly. “Miss Butter is  _ incredibly  _ versatile! Come on!”

Jean smirked and chuckled. 

Then a pang of loneliness hit him as he saw Phoebe in his mind’s eye.

He gritted his teeth and forced it down. 

“Is there anything I can do to help out here?” Andrew asked. 

“No, sorry,” Luke said, untying his scarf and shoved it in his pocket, narrowing his eyes against the cold. “Jean and I have to go alone. You three, wait here and don’t kill each other. Jean, if you get hurt, activate your emergency beacon and the others will come find you.”

Then he turned on his heel and marched off into the tunnel. 

Jean awkwardly turned to follow him. 

“Please stay safe,” Andrew called, his voice rife with anxiety. 

Jean sighed. “Okay. I will.”

Then he headed into the tunnel, hoping and praying that he’d be able to keep his word. 

Of course, as soon as he turned the corner, he slipped and almost fell into a crevasse of indistinguishable depth but definitely deep enough to kill him. 

Grumbling to himself, he began to climb through the maze of icy boulders and caverns. 

Luke’s words from a few hours ago echoed in his mind:  _ Feel the Force. The crystal’ll call out. Remember, it picks you, not the other way around.  _

Jean closed his eyes. 

He took a deep breath. 

Then he felt the strange humming in his mind, almost a tugging sensation. 

He turned. 

He needed to go down. 

And so he went, climbing along and following the pull. 

He got another few hundred feet through the potentially deadly labyrinth, reaching a part of the cavern where thermal vents shot steam past him before a ledge broke under his foot.

Shrieking, Jean slid awkwardly down the boulder he was climbing and landed in a pool of water. 

The water was so cold it felt hot. 

“Fuck!” Jean snarled, his teeth chattering violently as he clawed his way onto stable ground.

This wasn’t good. 

If there was anything to avoid at all costs in an environment like this, it was getting soaking wet. 

Shivering, he kept going. 

Finally he managed to make it into the tunnel again. His hands were so cold that his finger joints in his metal one kept sticking, and his clothes were covered in a glaze of ice that crackled when he moved. 

Also, his feet were numb. That too. 

Luckily the tunnel seemed to have evened out a bit, so he didn’t have to climb as much. 

The tugging sensation was getting stronger. Jean grinned. He was close.

And, of course, he was so caught up in his premature celebration that he didn’t hear the ice creak under his feet. 

It cracked. 

“No!” He snarled as the ice broke and he tumbled into the icy water. 

He kicked frantically. It felt like needles stabbing at his exposed skin. 

When he tried to swim to the surface, however, he realized in a moment of panic that the ice in this area was  _ still solid. _ Forcing down his terror, he swam for the nearest hole in the ice, where icicles glittered with crystals far above the surface. 

But there was a problem. 

Jean was getting tired. 

The cold wasn’t helping either, and his movements grew sluggish. 

His lungs screamed for air. 

Jean gritted his teeth and kept swimming, and then, to his horror, the shoulder joint in his metal arm stuck. 

_ No! Not now! _

He choked in surprise, accidentally inhaling freezing water. 

Then he started to panic. 

_ I can’t die here I can’t die here I can’t  _

His consciousness began to fade. 

He was almost there… almost to the surface… not yet… 

In a wild, last-ditch effort to survive, Jean furiously rammed his flesh hand into his metal shoulder, trying to jar it loose. 

No dice. 

His strength finally gave out, and his vision faded out. 

_ WAKE UP! _

Jean’s consciousness flickered back. 

He blinked, wincing at the icy water in his eyes, and then almost panicked when he realized he was still underwater. He must’ve blacked out for only a few seconds. 

Above him, hazy with ripples from above the surface of the freezing water… 

Any air left in his lungs was sucked out. 

It was  _ her.  _

Hollyleaf was kneeling in front of the hole in the ice a few feet above him, her green eyes narrowed, her mouth twisted with annoyance, starlight clinging to her wavy black hair. 

Then she spoke, and even though he was underwater, Jean heard her clearly. 

_ The strongest stars have hearts of kyber, my love. There’s still a chance. Take it.  _

Then she stuck her hand into the water and held it out. 

Jean poured every ounce of strength and will that was left in his body into reaching up and grabbing her hand.

As soon as he did, warmth flooded through him. 

He surged upwards. 

His head broke the surface, and then he was scrabbling up onto the ice, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. 

Shivering, Jean rolled over. 

“You’re a fucking mousebrain,” Hollyleaf muttered, gazing at him affectionately. “I thought we talked about this, you know, getting into trouble and almost dying every other week.”

“Yeah,” Jean mumbled guiltily, staring up at her in shock. “Sorry about that.”

Hollyleaf rolled her eyes, laying her hand on his cheek, gently tracing his jawline with her pointer finger. “You’re not allowed to join StarClan just yet. Now, go get your damn kyber crystal and  _ stay out of the water,”  _ she said. “I kind of broke StarClan laws to rescue you. Make it worth it, or I’ll find you in the afterlife so I can kill you again.”

With that, she stood, shot him one last stern glare, and dissolved into light. 

“Wait—“ Jean wheezed. 

But it was too late. The light was gone, leaving no trace of Hollyleaf’s appearance except for a small puddle the shape of a StarClan crest melted into the ground, which quickly froze over. 

Jean held his cheek, trying to cling to the remaining warmth of her touch. 

“She’s right, you dumbass,” he growled to himself, forcing down his bitterness and hoisting himself to his feet. “There’s still a chance. Don’t fucking waste it.”

He began to stagger towards the icicles, where he had a gut feeling he was going to find what he was looking for. 

It was  _ so cold.  _

Jean winced. His metal arm had completely frozen up at this point, and he couldn’t feel his toes or his flesh fingers. 

Then he stumbled and ran into a large, icy stalagmite.

And there, on the tip, just above his head, was what appeared to be a single kyber crystal. 

Jean actually  _ laughed  _ with relief. 

With a shaking hand, he pried the crystal from the ice. It was small, only about the size of his thumb, but he knew just how powerful it could be. 

Then the unthinkable happened. 

It broke in half, and started to melt in his palm, revealing the kyber crystal to be a useless chunk of ice. 

Jean’s heart plummeted. 

“No,” he mumbled frantically, staring at the pieces in his hand. “No, no. No…”

His vision blurred with tears. 

He slumped to a sitting position, cradling the fragments in his hand, and he finally broke down, realizing he was going to freeze to death here. 

This was where everything would end. 

His struggles were officially for nothing. 

He thought of Phoebe, and his pained whimpers turned into sobs. 

She’d be so disappointed in him. 

He felt so numb, so cold, so awful. He just wanted everything to end. 

Then he heard the voices. 

_ Jean, you can do this.  _

_ Jean, don’t give up.  _

_ Jean, it’s not over, not yet.  _

_ Jean, get back up.  _

_ Jean, it’s not too late.  _

_ Jean, there’s still a chance.  _

_ Jean, we’re here with you.  _

He sucked in a shaky breath. Through the haze of pain and delirium, he recognized every single voice, given that every single one of them was a dead friend of his. 

And Phoebe’s was the loudest. 

He hauled himself back to his feet, running on fumes, his vision swimming as he limped in the direction of the calls, more desperate than ever. 

He staggered to a halt in front of a stalactite, spotting the crystal.

He reached up and fumbled violently with the crystal, and ripped it free from the ice and stone. 

The warm hum of the Force flooded through him. 

“Thank  _ fuck,” _ Jean moaned, and crumpled to his knees. Then he fell sideways, gasping for breath. 

His vision began to fade as he managed to switch on the emergency beacon. 

He giggled deliriously.

Why was everything so warm? It was  _ freezing,  _ why did his body feel so warm and heavy?

Why was everything…


	7. Morality

“I’m sorry, who’re you?”

Leo winced. 

Shit, now he’d have to explain himself to these people. Pointing at the redhead and yelling  _ you  _ had been a bad move. 

There were four people in total, two humans (the redheaded young man and an older woman), an alien, and a Nightsister. 

Leo couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to a Nightsister. The one time he’d been to Dathomir, he’d accidentally toppled an important temple. 

That hadn’t gone over well. 

The Nightsister looked like the rest of her brethren: Tall and slender with skin the color of fresh snow, pale yellow eyes and white hair pulled into a simple updo, dark black lips and strange geometric facial tattoos. She wore a simple red robe, which was dirty and had several scorch marks on it. 

The two humans were surprisingly normal looking, at least for Gygax so far. The woman, maybe in her mid-forties, had dark skin and a crew cut, and was dressed in simple combat gear, also adorned with mud and scorch marks. 

The redheaded guy looked surprisingly young, twenty at the oldest. There were several small scars on his face, and he wore a dark blue flight suit and for some reason a bright pink poncho. 

There was a little droid clinging to his shoulders, beeping rapidly. 

Leo wasn’t very good at translating Binary, but he could’ve sworn the thing was asking if he was dangerous. 

Strangely worrisome, for a droid. 

The alien looked the most worried, though. He was short, chubby, and had four arms, an oddly wide face, and small eyes. He looked vaguely feline, even with bright purple skin and hair. Leo was pretty sure he was a Latero. 

“Well who’re  _ you?” _ Jesse countered. 

Leo winced. 

_ Please shut up, Jesse. Now is  _ not  _ the time for snide comments.  _

“Listen,” he said carefully. “I know you have no idea who the hell I am, but I have weird dreams that usually predict the future. I don’t know who you are either, but I know we need to talk.”

He glanced over at Empress Azulite, who was just watching everything with a look of mild amusement. 

“You have precognitive abilities?”

Leo whipped around, reflexively reaching for the knife in his belt.

Then he realized it was just the Nightsister, who’d teleported to him on his blind side. 

“Yeah,” he grumbled. “Don’t do that. Not on my blind side.”

He hated not having both eyes. 

“I am Merrin,” she said. “Did you and the glowing one crash here, too?”

“No,” Jesse broke in. “We’re from another reality. We happened to stop here, and we need to find a way offworld. At least, that’s what Leo says.”

Leo flinched. When would Jesse learn to  _ never  _ tell potential threats your real name and your story? It was like giving them a free business card that literally said,  _ hey, here’s all my magical information! Come kill me please! _

He growled in frustration. 

“I’m Leo,” he muttered. “Redhead, what’s your name?”

The guy paused in confusion. 

“Me? I’m, uh, Cal. Cal Kestis. I swear, I have never met you. Ever.”

“I know!” Leo hissed in frustration. “Just listen! I need to catch a wanted fugitive before my boss kills me! And if I had a dream and you just waltz in,  _ something’s  _ definitely up and your  _ lives  _ could be at stake! So just shut up and listen, Kestis, before we all die!”

Awkward silence. 

“Uhm,” Cal said. “Okay? Uh, do you want to see if you can help me fix the ship? We can, uh, talk.”

“Thank you!” Leo snapped. 

He was starting to get nervous. The longer this took, the more likely Mapleshade would kill him, and the more likely Arai would take his job. 

He had to figure this out. 

———

“Can you hand me a hydrospanner?”

“Here,” Leo huffed, handing the tool down into the maintenance bay of the starship, the  _ Stinger Mantis,  _ where Cal was trying to fix a cracked fuel pipe, eyes narrowed with concentration. “So who are you?”

He slipped his bow off his back and set it next to the tool kit. Maybe without it on, Cal would be more willing to talk. 

“I’m a Jedi,” Cal said. “Probably one of the last ones left. About six years ago, all of our troops turned on us. I was only a Padawan, and I hid as a scrapper on Bracca until I met Cere and Greez. Then there was this whole mess with a holocron, and I almost got killed by Darth Vader. I ended up having to kill a whole lot of people. I didn’t  _ want _ to kill anyone, though. It just sort of… happened.”

“Were they attacking you?” Leo huffed.

Cal frowned, but nodded. “They were Stormtroopers. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t know—“

“Bullshit,” Leo huffed, bitterness creeping into his voice. “If they’re dumb enough to believe all that propaganda, they’re bad enough to kill.”

Cal narrowed his eyes. 

“What about your boss you talked about? The one who you said would find you and kill you if you didn’t do what she told you to? Doesn’t sound like a particularly great employer.”

Leo scoffed. 

He didn’t want to admit it, but Cal had a point. Mapleshade often got branded as a villain because of her brutal methods of keeping order. 

But she wasn’t  _ evil.  _ Sure, she tended to kill underlings who resisted her rules and making examples out of them for the others, and also tended to backstab her allies and betray or use people… 

Wow, the more he thought about Mapleshade’s leading style, the more it made him cringe. 

But she had good motives. Someone had hurt her badly and she’d lost everything, and she wanted revenge, just like he did. And she had a chance to go home and get back what she’d lost. 

That was something Leo had killed for. 

He could still see the bitter smirk on Jasper’s face as he staggered into the light with the artifact that would’ve raised Mapleshade from the dead so much sooner.

_ You’ll never get the satisfaction of killing me and my friends. You’ll never find us again. You didn’t deserve Anthony. _

Leo clenched his jaw. 

Now it was all coming back at once, and he was powerless to stop the flood of memories. 

How he’d broken out of New Sky City with Mary and George.

How the two had abandoned him, calling him  _ obsessive _ and  _ crazy.  _

How that particular arrow, aimed at Jasper, had hit the wrong target. 

Anthony’s empty, lifeless eyes after he’d died from taking the shot that should’ve exacted Leo’s revenge. 

He fought back a sob. 

Jasper had willingly walked to his death into the rift in the space between realities that Leo himself had made in a last-ditch attempt to avenge himself by waking Mapleshade. 

Then the explosion had knocked Leo unconscious, and he’d woken up alone in an alien forest with half his face ripped open and blind in his left eye. He’d been trying to find a way back ever since, what was left of Mapleshade’s essence his only companion, following her instructions in hopes of her helping him get home. 

All Leo wanted was to go home and get Anthony back. 

“Uh… are you okay?”

Leo blinked. 

Cal was squinting at him skeptically from the maintenance bay, holding the damaged length of pipe in his hands. 

“I’m fine,” Leo growled. 

Cal raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he just looked down at Leo’s bow, still sitting on the floor next to the tool kit. 

“What’s that?”

“My weapon,” Leo sighed. “It’s a compound bow that can fold out into a sword for close-quarters combat.”

Cal tilted his head, examining it. “Wow, it looks pretty complex— _ AAAGHK!” _

Leo froze. 

Cal had wrapped his fingers around the handle of the bow, obviously picking it up to examine it more closely. But as soon as his fingers had come in contact with the worn leather, he went rigid, his face going slack. His eyes rolled back in his head and he let out a loose shriek, shaking violently. 

Leo lunged forward and grabbed his arms before he slipped back into the maintenance bay.

Was he having a seizure of some kind?

Leo didn't know, and he was honestly terrified for the poor guy.

“Cal?” he asked, gingerly poking his shoulder and trying to hold down his encroaching panic. “Cal, buddy? Cal, can you hear me?”

No response, except for more weak, unintelligible muttering.

Cal’s condition didn’t change for almost another minute. But when it did, he sat up so quickly he almost fell into the maintenance bay, gasping for breath. 

Leo let out a sigh of relief.

“Cal, are you okay?” he asked, trying to hide his worry. This guy was the best lead he’d had in weeks, and he couldn’t afford to lose him.

Cal slowly turned to look at him, a shocked expression on his face.

“You killed innocent people,” he blurted. “With that bow, didn’t you? Because of a grudge you held against  _ one person?” _

Leo gulped.

Oh,  _ shit.  _

He’d heard of psychometrics before, individuals who could sense the history of objects by touching them, but he’d never met one in person.

Well, before now. 

“Did you?” Cal hissed.

“N—no,” Leo lied, resisting the urge to back up quickly, his fear rising.

Then he saw Cal’s hand reach down to his belt to draw a weapon, and his instincts took over.

Leo bolted off the  _ Mantis  _ (which still had a broken engine, he noted), and ran towards the tunnels, ignoring Cal’s shouting and frantically transforming his bow into sword form. If Cal pursued him, ranged weapons wouldn’t do much good down here.

Then Leo heard the signature buzz of a lightsaber close behind him.


	8. Mortality

Leo acted before he thought and swung his sword to block the strike. The blade was made of a rare metal that could withstand the power of a lightsaber,  _ and  _ he’d enchanted it for good measure.

Cal looked shocked, staring at the silver metal holding back the glowing yellow energy blade on his—oh, shit— _ double-bladed _ lightsaber.

Leo hadn’t seen one of  _ those  _ before.

Then the calm broke, and Cal lashed out, nicking Leo’s arm.

Leo hissed in pain, ducking and rolling to avoid another blow. 

“Why are you running,” Cal was snarling, trying to hit him. “If you didn’t kill people who didn’t do anything wrong?”

Leo gritted his teeth, slipping through Cal’s defense in an attempt to damage the tendons on the back of his foot, but he was caught by the other blade of Cal’s lightsaber and had to roll out of the way before he got impaled.

“Would you stop it!” Leo snarled. “Okay, chill! I’ll kill you if I have to!”

“Oh, like you killed Anthony?”

Leo whipped around furiously and punched Cal in the jaw, sending him reeling. 

_ Damn his psychometry! _

“Don’t  _ fucking  _ talk about him!” Leo spat, kicking Cal in the ribs. 

The man staggered back into the geode-like wall, crying out in pain as the ragged blue crystals scraped his skin. 

Seething with rage and hurt, Leo raised his sword and lunged. 

But he realized something was wrong. 

When he tried to run at Cal, it felt like running through syrup. He couldn’t move faster than a few inches at a time. 

Then Cal was back up, and Leo realized he couldn’t effectively dodge like this. 

The end of Cal’s lightsaber scraped Leo’s chest, burning right through his shirt and grazing his ribs.

Leo screamed. 

Sure, lightsaber wounds instantly cauterized themselves due to the intense heat of the weapon, but they hurt like hell and got infected easily. 

He kicked Cal in the groin and bolted. 

Then Leo skidded to a halt at a junction in the tunnel, glancing frantically between his three choices.

The tunnel going left had a steep incline, but if Leo had learned anything about being underground from his years of traveling and fighting, one should never follow stale, musty air for fear of hitting a dead end or a cramped space. 

The one on the right stayed fairly flat, but the air smelled fresh, and a faint, cool breeze was blowing out. 

And then there was his third option, which was to turn around and try and make it past Cal, who seemed to be starting to recover from being kicked in the crotch. 

Leo wasn’t liking his odds. 

He gritted his teeth and sprinted down the tunnel to the right, and made it about fifty feet before he realized where that cold breeze was coming from. 

Mainly because the tunnel floor had eroded away, and he skidded, tripped, and fell through a hole in the floor and into a grotto that held an underground river far below. 

Leo floundered to the surface and out of the current, coughing and choking. 

Just as he’d dragged himself onto the small patch of rock at the end of the pool, swearing furiously and hissing in pain every time he put strain on his chest muscles, he heard a startled shriek, wild scuffling of boots on slick stone, and a loud splash as something large hit the water just out of sight on his blind side. 

Leo had to look over his shoulder. 

He was met by the sight of Cal, sopping wet and scrambling out of the water, his double-bladed saber in his hands and an almost comically enraged expression on his boyish face. 

Leo frantically parried the first few blows, his feet slipping on the cave floor.

He felt something in the back of his mind, a surge of energy. Something powerful and benevolent. 

He held onto it like a lifeline. 

There was an enraged snarl, and suddenly a green lioness with wings burst into existence, only about the size of an actual lion this time. 

Leo held onto the connection. 

The lion snarled and charged Cal, who yelped and dove out of the way. 

Then he hit the wall, and a yellow glow flashed in his eyes; the same color as his saber but even more intense. 

Glowing yellow cracks shot up the wall.

Leo gasped, crumpling at the pain in his chest, and suddenly Cal tackled him from the side. 

_ This is it, he’s gonna kill me— _

But then, a chunk of the cavern ceiling smashed into the ground where he’d been doubled over seconds before. 

The ground shook violently, almost like the earth was snarling. 

“Shit!” Cal screamed above the roar, his eyes still glowing bright yellow. “Shitfuckshitfuckshit! I can’t make it stop _ —gah!” _

More cracks shot across the floor. 

Leo realized suddenly what his dream from last night had meant. 

The Yellow Lion. The Earth-Shaker. 

“Let it go!” Leo shouted over the rumbling of the cave. “Let the connection go! Don’t hold it in!”

The only experience he had with channeling was accidentally summoning Green when Mapleshade had thrown him out, if you didn’t count witnessing the sheer power of Jesse’s runaway abilities. 

Cal let out a frustrated snarl. 

Then the roof of the cavern caved in, and Leo’s vision went black. 

———

He woke to a light shining in his eyes. 

Leo jolted awake, blinking away the glare, and groaned in pain.

His chest felt like it was on fire. 

Then he saw the source of the light: A little two-legged red and white droid about the size of a cat, which was leaning over him and trilling nervously. 

Leo grimaced. 

He really needed to work on his Binary, but he was sure the little droid was asking;  _ Are you okay? _

“Who’re you?” Leo groaned, trying to roll onto his side and ignore his pounding headache (he must’ve been hit by a chunk of rock judging by the painful lump on his head). 

[I’m BD-1! I heard you and Master Cal running away from the  _ Mantis  _ so I followed you. I almost couldn’t fit through the cracks, but I found you!]

“Y’know, your friend Cal can really pack on hell of a punch,” Leo grunted, attempting to sit up. Then he doubled over from the pain in his damaged ribs and several other bumps and bruises from the cave collapse. “Oh, god, my chest. Hurts. Bad.”

BD-1 cocked his head to the side curiously. [In pain? I have stimpacks.]

To emphasize this, the little droid slid open a panel in his head, revealing several handheld injection tubes, all filled with a faintly glowing green liquid that the infonet in Leo’s goggles confirmed to be healing stimulants. 

“Oh, thanks,” Leo mumbled, taking a tube. He pressed it against his shoulder and hit the injection button. 

There was a prick of pain, and then a soothing chill as the stim did its job. 

He glanced around. He was still in the cavern, except the hole he’d fallen through was blocked by a massive rockslide and half the cavern was caved in.

Then he remembered Cal. 

Leo had a brief internal debate as his morals struggled with his sense of reason. 

Should he leave the guy here because he knew about his past and would endanger his mission, or should he help him because recovering not one but  _ two _ channelers as well as a dangerous enemy would definitely get his job back?

He swore under his breath and struggled back to his feet, wincing. The stim had repaired some of the damage, but he was still hurting. 

[My sensors are picking up signs of life below us,] BD-1 beeped hopefully. [I think it might be Master Cal.]

“Oh, what the hell,” Leo muttered. “Lead the way, little guy.”

BD-1 let out an excited beep. 

Then he darted away to a large crack in the floor. [I’m a bad climber. Master Cal always let me ride on his back when we climbed cliffs. Can I…]

Leo heaved a sigh. “Climb on.”

BD-1 jumped up onto his shoulders, beeping animatedly about some adventure on Kashyyyk. 

Leo grumbled a response every now and then as he carefully lowered himself down into the crack and climbed down, and then into a smaller cave below where a section of the roof had crumbled, and slumped on the cave floor, his left arm pinned under a boulder and covered in bruises, was Cal.

[Master Cal!] BD-1 blooped, and leapt off Leo’s shoulders. [Master Cal! Master Cal, are you okay? Can you hear me?]

Cal let out a faint groan. 

[Give him a stim!] BD-1 screeched. [He’s hurt, Master Leo! Help him!]

Leo sighed and rolled the rock off Cal’s arm, wincing at the sight of crushed bones and torn flesh. Then he took a stim and applied it. 

After a few seconds, Cal grimaced and opened his eyes. “Ow. Kriff. Where…”

“You owe me,” Leo snapped, ripping off one of Cal’s sleeves to bind the nasty wounds in his other arm, since the stims only did so much. 

He was starting to regret rescuing his assailant, but BD-1 was difficult to upset. 

Speaking of BD-1, the little droid was enthusiastically nuzzling Cal’s free hand and hopping up and down, beeping and whistling with joy. Cal seemed amused and relieved, giving a weary smile and gently patting his head. 

Then Cal scowled at Leo. “Why the hell are you helping me? You could’ve just finished the job and I wouldn’t be a problem. I know who you really are, you know.”

Leo paused.

He couldn’t reveal his plan to Cal without fending off another murder attempt. 

“You’re important,” he grumbled, wrapping the wounds. “You know what you did? Collapsing that cavern? That’s something very few can do, man.”

Cal winced as his broken bones slowly mended. “I would  _ kill _ for a normal life.”

“So would I…” Leo sighed, realizing that when it came to him, that phrase was a little  _ too _ literal. “So would I.”

He finally finished binding Cal’s wounds.

[How will we get out?] BD-1 asked anxiously, now perched on Cal’s shoulders. [Master Cal, you can’t climb with only one arm.]

Leo swore under his breath. 

He was starting to hate how observant this droid was. 

Cal’s battered face paled. 

“Shit,” he mumbled. “I could try and call Merrin through the Force, but—“

“Face it, you’re too hurt,” Leo grumbled, putting his goggles on. “We need to find another way out.”

He scanned the room. 

Then he found the crack in the wall, just big enough for him to fit through, and even better, the sonar scan proved there was another chamber beyond it. 

Leo quickly headed to the crack. 

“BD-1,” he murmured. “You picking up any life forms beyond this?”

[No, these caves are empty.]

Even so, Leo drew his sword just in case, and squeezed through the crack, Cal following close behind. 

Sure enough, the cavern was empty. 

However, there was a spiral stone staircase hewn into the wall, a bright circle of evening sky so far above them it was the size of a quarter. 

“Oh, now  _ this  _ is gonna be a pain in the ass,” Leo muttered. 

“Wait,” Cal said. “Maybe I can…”

Suddenly the floor rumbled, and without warning, it jolted upwards so fast that Leo yelped and stumbled, catching sight of Cal with his hands (glowing bright yellow) pressed against the ground. 

BD-1 screeched wordlessly in alarm. 

And the car-sized chunk of earth they were standing on shot into the sky, and then they started to fall. 

Leo suddenly remembered the elements that the Lions were connected to: Black was shadows, White was light, Red was fire, Blue was water, Yellow was earth, and Green… 

There were plant seeds in the earth they were clinging to as they fell. 

Leo snarled and summoned his Lion’s power, sending it into the seedlings, forcing his will into them. 

There was a loud  _ crack  _ like a gunshot.

Now their chunk of earth was suspended in the opening of the hole by vines, which were creaking ominously. 

Leo gritted his teeth, forcing the tendrils to weave around each other. 

“Jump off!” He hissed. 

Black spots danced across his vision. 

He knew he was pushing himself to his limits, and his body wasn’t having it. 

“Goddamnit!” He heard Cal spit. 

And then Cal lunged forward and hoisted him up onto one of the vines, and BD-1 suddenly turned on a little motor in his body, and they shot up the vine, making it to solid ground just before the vines snapped and the chunk of hardened earth plummeted into the darkness below. 

Then Leo’s knees buckled. 

He groaned, his head spinning as his exhaustion caught up to him. 

Cal, cradling his broken arm, yelped in surprise and tried to catch him as he slumped to the ground. 

“Leo!” Cal’s voice sounded foggy and far away. “Leo! Leo, stay awake!”

“Y—you owe… me…” Leo mumbled. 

Then he passed out for the second time that day, ignoring Cal’s shouts.


	9. Inner Demons

Jean gasped for air, sitting bolt-upright. 

Then he hit his head on the ceiling of the sleeping niche in the infirmary aboard the  _ Falcon,  _ and winced. 

He felt weak and shaky. 

Then he realized his kyber crystal was gone, and almost panicked, but then he saw it resting on the table with his clothes, which were washed and folded. 

And then he saw Andrew, dozing in a chair next to him. 

Jean chuckled weakly. 

Of course Andrew must’ve refused to leave his side. 

Jean quickly inspected his body. Luckily he seemed alright. No wounds except for a few scrapes, and the only thing that had been lost to frostbite seemed to be some patches of skin on his arm and legs and the pinky toe on his left foot, thanks to the fiery aura of the Red Lion that must’ve protected him in the caves (though he hadn’t been aware of it).

He picked up the kyber crystal. 

He stared at it. It was glowing faintly in his hand, and he could sense the power humming inside it. 

Remembering what Luke had said, Jean took a breath and closed his eyes. 

He pictured the crystal, focusing on the faint whisper of the Force around him, pictured his bond with it. 

There was a quiet tremor. 

He opened his eyes. 

In his cupped palm, the kyber crystal’s glow had changed from pale white to a beautiful pale blue. 

“Uhm, Jean? Your rock is glowing.”

Jean looked up, and realized Andrew was awake, staring at the crystal in fascination. 

“What?” Jean teased, not bothering to hide his smile. “Magic, baby.”

Then Andrew abruptly stood up and sat down heavily on the cot, and before Jean could say anything else Andrew had wrapped his arms around him and buried his face in the side of his neck. 

Jean stilled, hugging him back. 

“Your beacon went off,” Andrew muttered, his lips grazing Jean’s shoulder ever so softly. “I was so fucking scared when we found you. You were just laying there, dying. You were covered in ice, and your pulse was barely there, and you had hypothermia and frostbite and we almost didn’t bring you out of there because we thought you… you were…”

Reality hit Jean like a brick wall. 

Oh god, he’d almost died. He’d almost died in the arms of the first person he’d really let himself care about in a long time. 

“It’s okay,” Andrew whispered as if he’d read his mind. “You can cry.”

And finally, after years of being shored up and held together by his anger and fear and trauma from the horrible things he’d been through, the dam holding back Jean’s emotions finally crumbled. 

He broke down again, clutching his kyber crystal in one hand and holding Andrew’s hand in the other, burying his face in his chest. 

“Oh my god,” he choked out. “Shit, oh my god. I fucked up.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Andrew murmured. “It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay, just breathe, sunshine. We’re safe here.”

Jean slowly relaxed. 

Andrew was right, they were safe. 

He slowly pulled away, still holding Andrew’s hand. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I kinda had a breakdown in there. I almost died and well, you saved me, and—“

“Yeah,” Andrew said, wincing. “Well, the fact that I could literally reconstruct the ice in the tunnels was pretty much the only reason we got to you in time, and I passed out, like, right after we managed to reach you. Hawkfrost had to carry me back, and I’m pretty sure he stole my pistol on the way.”

Jean almost dropped his new kyber crystal in alarm. 

“You fucking  _ used your powers?” _ He hissed. “You literally had surgery… uh… yesterday! Didn’t I tell you not to overextend yourself for me?”

“Didn’t you almost  _ die?” _ Andrew retorted. “Jean, you were gonna either freeze to death or succumb to hypothermia! I had no choice!”

Jean flinched. 

There was  _ always  _ a choice. 

“Look,” he muttered. “I get it. I get that this stresses you out. But we have a goddamn war to fight, and if you’re constantly out of commission because  _ I’m _ in deep shit, people could die, okay? The mission is more important to us than I am!”

A dark, furious look suddenly crossed Andrew’s face and he abruptly stood up, fists clenched. 

“But you’re more important than the mission than me,” he snarled.

And then he stormed out. 

Jean just sat there, suddenly feeling incredibly guilty. 

He glanced down at his kyber crystal, still in his hand. The blue glow had shifted to more of a teal now. 

He didn’t know if that meant something, but he sure did feel terrible. 

———

Everyone else in the lounge area of the  _ Falcon  _ seemed tense. 

Jean glanced around. 

“Where’s Luke?” He asked nervously, wincing at Petra’s black eye. 

“In his room,” she grumbled. “He won’t come out. Said he had to meditate or something. Have you put your lightsaber together yet?”

“No,” Jean muttered. 

_ “Someone’s  _ in a bad mood,” Hawkfrost remarked. “Who made dirt in your fresh-kill?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jean snapped, and headed over to the crate of assorted lightsaber components sitting on the couch next to Petra. 

He quickly chose the inner mechanical parts, then the sleeve, grip, and emitter. 

He could feel two pairs of eyes on him, watching as he started to piece things together, and finally he got too annoyed to continue.

“Stop staring at me,” Jean hissed. 

“Where’s Andrew?” Hawkfrost asked, sounding genuinely worried. “You two are always together. He wouldn’t leave your side.”

Jean winced. 

“I don’t know,” he muttered. 

Petra squinted. 

“We had an argument, okay?” Jean snapped. “He just ran off! I don’t know where! Stop being assholes!”

“Hold on, he’s outside,” Hawkfrost said, tapping a screen on one of the consoles nearby. “Yeah, see, the external cameras are still working, even in the blizzard that picked up while you were unconscious.”

Jean glanced at the screen. 

It seemed to be night outside, and in the dim light, Jean could see Andrew sitting on a rock next to the closed entry hatch. 

The footage was almost too grainy to tell, but he had a distressed, malcontent scowl on his face, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth. 

“StarClan, what’d you say to piss him off, mate?” Hawkfrost asked, spinning his chair to face him. 

Jean narrowed his eyes. 

“Hold on,” Petra said, sitting up. “Before you say anything, was it about him using his powers to save your life?”

Jean clenched his jaw. 

“Yes,” he muttered. “He can’t keep risking his life just for me and almost dying because of it. I’m not a top priority here. Killing Mapleshade for good is.”

Hawkfrost snorted. 

“That, my friend,” he remarked, “is, as you Twolegs would likely say,  _ incredibly _ fucking stupid.”

Jean opened his mouth to protest, but Petra held up a hand. 

“Let him finish,” she said, a vaguely curious and amused expression crossing her face. “I kinda wanna see where he goes with this. I haven’t known him for long, but Hawkfrost, he doesn’t have a train of thought. It’s, like, six trains on four tracks and they’re all narrowly missing each other and all the conductors are either dead or screaming hysterically.”

Jean resisted the urge to give her another black eye to match the one already there. 

Though she probably could’ve fended him off, in his weakened state. 

“Well,” Hawkfrost continued, clapping his hands together. “A while ago, during  _ our _ Great Galactic War, I had another mate, you see. His name was Lukas, and I loved both him and my J dearly. But then, the end of the war came around, and that bastard sacrificed himself, which I did  _ not  _ approve of, to save the entire universe. What I have to say is sure, maybe  _ suggest _ that Andrew try to only use his powers in dire situations, but don’t get upset when he deems a circumstance as such but you don’t. Also, for the love of my dear mother Sasha, do have a self-preservation instinct, Jean.”

Jean paused. 

Huh, things must’ve gone differently. In his reality, in his Great Galactic War, it had been his former lover Aidan who’d given up his life to destroy Mapleshade.

Honestly, he couldn’t imagine Luis doing the same, even if he’d survived… 

Jean hastily shoved down the memories. 

He knew that if he thought about what his other personality had done, said alternate personality would jump at the chance to antagonize him.

Speaking of said alternate personality, Shadowfire had been awfully quiet ever since Mapleshade had woken up. Ordinarily, the bastard would’ve definitely used that as nightmare material and antagonized him mercilessly. But for some reason, Jean hadn’t even heard a whisper from him, which was very disconcerting.   


Usually if Shadowfire was abnormally silent like this, that meant he was plotting something, and he’d been quieter than he had in years.

Then Jean’s eyes flickered back to the camera screen. 

He almost screamed. 

He saw  _ himself,  _ quietly creeping through the snow, a dagger in hand, heading directly for Andrew under the cover of howling wind and darkness. 

“Woah, you okay, buddy?” Petra asked, worry in her eyes. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“Funny you should ask,” Jean blurted, panic rising in his chest. “Because if you look at the camera screen, you’ll see one sneaking up on my fucking boyfriend with a knife.”

He knew exactly who it was, and he had a gut feeling he wasn’t the only one capable of seeing him this time. 

But he didn’t get it. He couldn’t possibly have the strength to materialize. 

Jean hastily grabbed a blaster. 

Petra’s face paled. “Oh,  _ shit,  _ that’s freaky. We need to get out there,  _ now.  _ I’ll get Luke. Hawkfrost, Jean, get out there and hold it off.”

“No, I’m doing this alone,” Jean yelled, running to the entrance hatch. “I’ve got unfinished business with him.”

When he made it out of the ship, Jean could hardly hear over the roar of the wind, and the residual exhaustion from almost freezing to death only twelve hours ago was starting to make him have regrets.

He ran as fast as he could through the snow, cursing when it got in his shoes. The hail felt like needles slicing his cheeks as he ran, clutching his blaster in his hand and stuffed his unfinished lightsaber into his pocket.

He hoped he wasn’t too late.

Then, when he rounded the corner, he almost crashed into Andrew, who was getting up off his rock.

“AAH!” 

They both screamed.

“What the hell are you doing outside?” Andrew yelled over the wind. 

“There’s someone here!” Jean snapped. “I know him and he shouldn’t be here!”

Andrew scowled.

Jean clenched his fists, preparing to have to yell some more, but Andrew paused and looked past him, eyes still narrowed.

Then he froze, his eyes going wide with fear.

Jean whipped around, bringing up his metal arm right as Shadowfire swung his dagger at him.

He frantically knocked the blade aside.

Shadowfire snarled in rage and lunged forward, slashing violently with his weapon, and anticipated Jean’s dodge to the right.

Jean howled in pain as the blade gashed open his flesh arm.

Damn it!

“You’re forgetting,” Shadowfire spat, punching him hard in the stomach with his metal arm that was identical to Jean’s, “that I’m  _ you! _ I know all your moves, asshole!”

“Andrew, run!” Jean yelped, kicking Shadowfire in the knee to unbalance him.

But Andrew was nowhere to be seen.

Jean faltered.

Had Andrew just  _ left him here? _

_ Alone? _

For someone who’d angrily tried to insist that Jean’s life was worth more than the mission… 

Jean was so shocked and horrified that he didn’t have time to block Shadowfire’s vicious blow to his head.


	10. When Your Evil Doppelgänger Seems To Have A Bondage Kink

When he woke up, everything was dark.

“Whazzu?” Jean mumbled, glancing around in a panic, trying to lift his arms.

He couldn’t.

He was tied to a chair in a dimly lit room, the sound of creaking fans in the distance. It looked like an abandoned warehouse, which brought back a few unsavory memories. 

Jean quickly assessed his physical condition. Aside from several bruises, there was a paralyzing disc fixed to his metal arm, rendering it useless, and of course, there was a bloody, stitched-shut gash in his wrist, undoubtedly a wound from having a tracker inserted.

Jean swore under his breath.

This was bad.

“Oh, you like it?” A voice said cheekily from the shadows. “It’ll scar, man. You’ll be able to match that one on your face!”

Jean gritted his teeth.

“Shadowfire,” he muttered. “I know you’re here.”

“Oh, yeah, I know,” Shadowfire said smugly, stepping out of the dark corner and leaning against the wall in front of him. “Guess who got their own brand-new physical body, courtesy of Mapleshade.”

“Lemme guess,” Jean grumbled sarcastically. “Darkstripe?”

“Oh, him too,” Shadowfire replied. “But also me. You may have trapped me in the astral plane for a hot second, but Mapleshade decided I was useful. Unlike  _ your _ incompetent ass.”

Jean laughed harshly.

He tensed his wrists. Well, his metal arm was paralyzed, and his lightsaber was only half-finished, but maybe he could still break out.

And figure out where the  _ hell _ he was.

“Why’d you kidnap me?” He growled, straining against his cuffs. “You have a physical body now, why bother going after me?”

Shadowfire scoffed, pulling out a hunting knife.

“Oh, I’ve got orders,” he said, his voice lowering dangerously. “Orders from the Bird herself. I’m exactly the same as you, all the way down to my DNA.”

Jean froze.

“Oh,  _ HELL  _ no!” He spat, wriggling furiously.

He knew exactly what Shadowfire’s plan was, and he knew that the only way it would possibly end was badly.

For all parties involved. 

Shadowfire grimaced, and blinked a few times. His eyes changed from pitch black with glowing slitted pupils to a human’s eyes, pale icy blue and glowing faintly.

Jean could only stare in horror.

“Oh, and I’ll be talking to your little friends,” Shadowfire sang, flicking his nose. “Too bad I’ll have to leave you here to die. Anyway, say hi to Hollyleaf for me!”

And with that, he turned and strutted out.

Jean snarled in fury, attempting to wrench through his bonds even though the effort was futile.

He’d had somebody commit atrocities while wearing his face before. But Romeo had been much easier to find and reveal as an imposter, given his flair for drama, incredible temper, and rampant desire for attention. 

Shadowfire, on the other hand, was a slippery bastard who knew how to fly under the radar.

Jean groaned.

The steel cables strapping him to the chair and the cuffs on his wrists were too strong to break, especially with his prosthetic out of commision. His only hope was rescue, but the problem there was that nobody could  _ possibly  _ know where he was.

And Andrew had left him behind.

Jean sighed in defeat. 

He didn’t get why Andrew had just left him to fend for himself. Ordinarily, the guy would’ve thrown himself into combat with zero regard for his personal wellbeing.

The fact that he’d just bolted for seemingly no reason was frightening.

Maybe something had spooked him.

Then Jean remembered the Force and how Luke could communicate with Leia.

Red had left to look for Jesse.

Maybe… 

He took a deep breath.

_ Red, if you’re here, find me. _

———

Jean quickly got bored. 

After maybe ten minutes of sitting there, tied to his chair, he started trying to move around. 

Unfortunately, that was how he figured out that the paralyzing disc on his metal arm was rigged to shock him if he tried to mess with the cuffs on his arms. 

After several painful electric shocks, Jean gave up trying to get the cuffs off. 

Great, the only thing he’d succeeded in doing was giving himself a headache and numbness in his flesh arm.

“Think,” Jean muttered. “What would you do? How would you restrain yourself?”

He frowned, and experimentally heaved himself forwards with a quick jerk of his arm and legs, grunting from the pain. 

Sure, he barely moved an inch, but it was progress. 

It took him almost fifteen minutes to move about six meters to the door, and by the end of it he was thoroughly exhausted and aching all over.

Jean sighed and studied the door. 

It was metal, obviously very thick, and had a keypad lock that was very clearly rigged to a large bomb attached to the wall. One wrong button press, and he’d probably send the entire warehouse up in a massive fireball.

And that was if he had his usable arm free to even punch in the password in the first place. 

Jean groaned in frustration and let his head slump back. 

God, his friends’ lives were at stake. 

He could only hope that somehow they’d recognize the impostor before any major damage was done, and hopefully do away with him. 

Jean sighed. 

He was tired, but maybe he could try to send another message to Red via the Force, even though he probably didn’t have enough energy for that, and he was _definitely_ too tired to try and reach Andrew through the Force. Even Luke, who was a skilled Jedi Knight, apparently couldn’t contact his sister (whom he shared a powerful empathy link with) if he was too exhausted. 

However, Red was so similar to Phoebe that it made Jean hurt, so maybe that could help lower his odds and get him found.

He winced.

Phoebe was… a hard topic for him to think about.

He hadn’t been there to help her.

Most of all, the fact that  _ Jesse  _ of all people had caused her death really ticked him off. He’d never liked the guy to begin with, and now he just had more reasons to hate him.   


But somehow, he couldn’t find it in himself to blame Jesse for Phoebe’s death. Maybe it was because Mapleshade had had a lot to do with Jesse’s collapse.

Jean could sympathize with that.

_ RED,  _ he thought.  _ RED, DON’T FUCKING IGNORE ME. _

Suddenly, he heard footsteps.

Jean held his breath, considering the options of crying for help or staying silent. He decided on silence because the likelihood of the source of said footsteps being out to kill him was considerably higher than them being a rescuer. 

But then the door burst off its hinges, and Jean was greeted with the sight of a short, slender altean of indeterminable gender with fluffy blue hair, dressed in blue and white body armor that obviously doubled as a space suit. They wielded a glowing energy spear, and had a confused look on their face.

“Hold on…” they mused. “You’re Jean, right?”


	11. Not What I Agreed To

Leo opened his eyes. 

And was then greeted by a slobbery dragonet tongue in his face. 

“Ow,” he muttered. 

“Leo!” Jesse’s voice came from somewhere behind him. “You’re awake!”

Leo groaned and sat up. His whole body was aching like he’d just run a marathon.

The dragonet that had been licking him chirped shrilly and scurried off down the tunnel that led away from the small room, tail waving wildly.

Then Leo remembered how he’d passed out after attempting to escape Cal’s attempt to beat the shit out of him.

“Shit,” he hissed. “Has Cal told you anything… shocking?”

Jesse, who was tucked into a small alcove, the heat radiating off his arms enough to warm the room to a slightly uncomfortable level, frowned, his brow furrowing. 

“No, not really,” he said. “I mean, aside from how he was freaking out because he collapsed a cave with his mind.”

Leo heaved a sigh of relief.

Cal hadn’t let any information about his past slip to Jesse, thank god. 

Somehow, Leo felt bad about that. Guilty that he was hiding his true plans.

But he quickly pushed it aside. His life was on the line, and he didn’t have much time to find Petra and get back to Mapleshade with… wow, now he had  _ two _ channelers with him.

Three, if he counted himself.

But that there worried him. Mapleshade wasn’t above backstabbing, not by a long shot.

What if she saw his abilities… 

He pushed the paranoid thoughts away.

No, he was one of her most trusted allies. He’d helped her for literal years; surely she wouldn’t turn on him.

Would she?

Just then, Quentin walked into the small room, grinning.

Leo felt his heart drop into his toes.

Oh good lord,  _ why  _ did this guy have to be so damn good-looking? It was a serious distraction, and Leo couldn’t afford to… ah,  _ catch feelings. _

He gritted his teeth, trying not to look at him too long.

“You look better,” Quentin remarked. “Not bleeding from your ears and nose anymore.”

Leo froze. 

“Wait, what?” he blurted, reaching up to touch his left ear.

Ever since he’d gotten his nose broken, he’d been prone to getting nosebleeds easily. But he’d never bled from his ears before, and he knew that was a symptom of psychic damage.

And sure enough, his fingers came away sticky with blood.

“I can hear fine,” Leo muttered. 

“Y’know, I have no idea what you did back there, but Redhead seemed impressed. Also pissed off at you, but he told me not to mention that,” Quentin said cheerfully. “Anyway, Redhead, I can’t remember his name, asked me to come get you. He wants to talk to you. In private. Emphasis on the  _ private _ part.”

Leo winced.

He had a feeling that this conversation wasn’t going to be fun.

———

He met Cal on the  _ Mantis  _ again, and the guy was sitting in one of the lounge seats, his arm in a sling and looking very bitter.

“What do you want?” Leo muttered.

“We fixed the ship,” Cal huffed. “Cere and Greez are leaving for Kashyyyk in a few hours. To try and talk to some people we know and get a few allies to back us. I can feel there’s a fight coming, and we’ve gotta have help.”

Leo hesitated.

He couldn’t tell where the guy was going with this, and needless to say he didn’t like it.

“What’s your point?” he demanded.

Cal narrowed his eyes.

“Merrin and BD-1 and I are coming with you. So is Quentin. We’ll help you, and I’ll stay quiet about what I… saw, but if  _ anything  _ suspicious happens, you’re gonna get a lightsaber in the stomach. Got it? I’m not afraid to end a few lives for the good of the galaxy, and you're no exception.”

Leo glanced at Cal’s lightsaber, fixed to his belt in clear view. He had a feeling the guy had left it out to make him nervous.

“Fine,” Leo relented. 

He didn’t like this plan one bit. If Cal didn’t find out about something and kill him, his Nightsister friend probably would.

He didn’t like his chances.

And then there was Jesse, who was a handful in and of himself with his runaway powers and night terrors and hyperactiveness that made him jump at the slightest sound.

And Quentin, who was… well, Quentin.

Leo bit the inside of his cheek.

  
This was  _ not  _ going as he’d planned.


	12. Getting To Know Each Other

It didn’t take long for Leo to get annoyed. 

Between BD-1’s beeping, Merrin’s snoring, Jesse’s complaining about being too cold, Quentin’s complaining about the sun being too bright, and Cal’s threatening stares, trekking to the only area on Gygax that was safe to open a portal seemed to take at least three times as long as it should’ve. 

Oh, and they were flying there via Quentin’s adoptive siblings. 

Currently, Leo was clinging to the spiny back of Lightning, one of the largest dragonets. Cal was about fifteen feet behind him on Tempest, flying next to Merrin, who was fast asleep on Diamond’s back. 

Ahead of him, Quentin was deep in conversation with Pearl (speaking to her in a language he’d called Draconic that sounded like a baboon gargling a mouthful of gravel), and then Jesse was soaring through the air, not on the back of one of the dragonets. 

Instead, he was venting his powers by flying by himself. 

Jesse seemed to have sprouted spectral white wings that didn’t quite seem attached to him. His whole body was glowing brightly, like a star, and he looked exhilarated as he whooped and shot through the clouds like a bullet. 

Leo winced as he shot past Tempest and almost clipped her wing. 

“Kriff!” Cal yelped. 

Leo stifled a chuckle as BD-1 shrieked in alarm, and Tempest huffed. 

“What the hell’s up with him?” Cal suddenly asked, urging Tempest forward so that she was flying side by side with Lightning. 

Leo heaved a sigh. He’d had a feeling Cal would ask about Jesse’s condition.

“He’s a channeler,” he explained. “He can control a spirit of one of the six supernatural forces that embody the universe. Well, then again, his connection is so strong it’s more like he’s barely keeping it under control.”

Cal made a face. 

“Don’t get like that,” Leo grumbled. “You know what happened to the cave? That was one of them. If I’m not mistaken, you’re a yellow channeler. Jesse’s a white channeler. I’m a green channeler.”

Cal hesitated. “Will I… get like that?”

“Don’t think so,” Leo replied, watching Jesse collide with a flock of geese midair and accidentally turn three into roasted dinners. “Jesse… he’s a special case.”

It was silent for a few seconds. 

“So…” Cal said. “Any family? Friends? Loved ones? I only saw a lot of fighting when I touched your sword.”

Leo stiffened. 

Friends? No real ones. 

Family? All dead, to his knowledge. 

Loved ones?

That wasn’t something he wanted to unpack with Cal. 

“I’m taking your silence as a ‘everyone’s dead’ kinda response,” Cal remarked, propping his chin on his hands. “You’re making an angry face. But honestly, I get it. I watched my mentor die on the floor in front of me when I was thirteen.”

Leo winced. 

“Fun,” he muttered. 

“Oh, tragic pasts?” Quentin remarked, grinning from where he was perched on Pearl’s back. Given that it was currently around midday, his goggles were back on. “You’re gonna love mine. My biological mom was a high drow priestess who snuck out and got frisky with a human in a tavern. Let’s just say she found out she was pregnant, and abandoned me when I was born, hoping I’d die. Oh, and then my  _ real  _ mom happened to find me, and she raised me. I know she’s a dragon, but she’s a great mom. I love her more than anything.”

“What’s a drow, anyway?” Cal piped up. 

Quentin laughed. 

“They’re essentially dark elves. Dark elves that live underground and are super evil and racist and like to commit murder.”

Leo shuddered.

_ Now  _ he understood the goggles. If drow were subterranean creatures, they were probably evolved to be able to see in almost complete darkness, and Quentin must’ve inherited that sensitivity to light. 

He made a mental note not to get in a fight with Quentin somewhere dark. 

Merrin snored loudly. 

“So what’s her deal?” Leo decided to ask, gesturing with his foot at the sleeping woman. 

Cal pursed his lips. 

“She’s the last surviving Nightsister from Dathomir,” he said. “Decided to come with me to help me on this mission I had to find a holocron. The first time we met, she chased me with zombies.”

BD-1 beeped something Leo didn’t quite catch over the noise of the wind. 

Cal visibly blushed and scowled. 

“No!” The younger man hissed. “No, no way. I do  _ not  _ like her. Yeah, yeah, I know she can kick my ass in physical combat, but—oh, shut up!”

BD-1 chirped happily. 

Leo quickly hid a smirk. 

Then Jesse hurtled through the air between them, screaming like a banshee, and Leo saw the weird creatures that looked like stags the size of horses with bird wings chasing him beat-hell through the air like fighter planes. 

“Shit!” Quentin yelled, drawing his bagpipes. “Fuckfuckfuck! Perytons! He must’ve disturbed a nest! They’re fine when they’re tamed but  _ not  _ when they’re wild! Weapons! Shit! Fast!”

One of the stags let out a furious screech and Leo saw its glowing red eyes and gore-speckled horns. 

He groaned and drew his bow.

Cal ignited his lightsaber. 

“Fuuuuuuuck!” Jesse screamed. “Aaah! Scary bird things! What the fucking hell, they’re still here! Shiiiit!”

Then the first peryton attacked, hooves flashing and teeth bared. 

Leo fired his arrow. 

He watched in horror as his arrow just glanced off the beast’s throat like it was made of steel. 

Cal then threw his lightsaber, which did some damage, thankfully. 

The yellow blade left a smoking gash in the creature’s hide, and it screamed in pain and plummeted from the sky. 

But then Leo saw at  _ least  _ twenty more. 

“Jesse!” He shouted. “Where…”

He faltered when he saw how Jesse was up in the air, struggling to free himself from the talons of the biggest peryton in the group. 

“Well, that’s useless,” Leo muttered. 

And then the other perytons attacked in a flurry of horns and talons, screeching and snapping. 

Cal had his lightsaber again, and was frantically trying to fight off a swarm of the vicious creatures. 

Quentin was wildly playing an awful bagpipe rendition of  _ Fireball,  _ and whenever a peryton got close to him, it got blasted in the face by a column of flame, but there were just too many. 

And Merrin was still fast asleep on Diamond’s back, blissfully unaware as her dragonet sprayed lightning at the attacking monstrosities. 

Then several perytons dove at Leo. 

Leo quickly ducked against Lightning’s armored hide as they passed overhead and overshot him, but a razor-sharp hoof clipped his ear. 

He snarled in pain.

Then the perytons wheeled around, screeching, and Lightning roared, blasting electricity from his mouth. 

Two of the monsters fell in a burst of charbroiled feathers. 

Leo winced. He could feel the blood dripping down the side of his head as he nocked another arrow. 

This time, he aimed at the beast’s eye. 

He released his arrow. 

In a spray on greenish blood, the peryton stalled and fell, wailing in pain, Leo’s arrow stuck deep in its eye socket, effectively skewering its brain. 

Then, out of nowhere, something grabbed him.

Leo screamed as claws sank into his shoulders and dragged him into the sky. 

It was one of the perytons, snarling in rage.   


Then, of course, Lightning dove after Tempest (who was surrounded), leaving Leo dangling hundreds of feet in the air.

With no ride.

His stomach did a backflip as his vertigo kicked in.

“Oh, god,” he mumbled, squeezing his eyes shut and fumbling for an arrow.

He had no idea if his incredibly dangerous and stupid idea would work, and if he got the timing wrong, well… 

Then Jesse streaked by, wrestling furiously in the alpha peryton’s claws, trying to blast it with his fire, but he didn’t seem to be doing much damage.

“Kriff!” Cal shouted, toppling off Tempest’s back. Then he landed on Lightning.

“You okay?” Leo snarled, trying to get a grip on his peryton’s claws.

“Doing great!” Cal yelped as Lightning pelted past while being chased by six perytons screaming bloody murder.

Leo finally managed to wedge his hand in between the scales on his peryton’s foreleg.

Then he stabbed it with his arrow.

The peryton screamed in pain and released him, beating its wings violently.

Leo gritted his teeth and hooked his arm around its wing joint and, clinging to where feathers met fur, he clawed his way onto its back.

The peryton snarled and bucked wildly, trying to throw him off.

Suddenly there was a massive explosion below them, white fire shooting into the sky along with charred feathers and other unsavory pieces of fried alpha peryton, and the one Leo was currently trying to wrestle into submission screamed in fright and shot into the sky, still thrashing and trying to throw him off. 

Leo just held on tighter, trying to hold down his nausea.

For a while, they spun and flailed through the clouds in an incredibly dangerous aerial rodeo, until Leo managed to get an arrow tied to a length of paracord through the peryton’s mouth like a bit.

The peryton screamed and finally gave in, snarling in discontent as Leo hauled back on his makeshift reins.

It stopped, hovering midair, beating its wings and screeching.

“HOLY SHIT!” Quentin screamed somewhere below. “YOU TAMED A GODDAMN PERYTON!”

Leo dug his heels into the peryton’s side, urging it to dive back towards the group.

He’d ridden plenty of horses before. Was a demon stag with the disposition of a pissed-off hyena really that different?

Surprisingly, the peryton didn’t try to throw him off again.

Then Merrin sleepily yawned and opened her eyes, rubbing them.

“Merrin!” Cal screamed from where three perytons were holding him and currently trying to tear him apart.

And just like that, the tide turned as Merrin scowled, muttered something, and thrust out her hands, her eyes glowing green like miniature suns.

Most of the perytons fled. 

The ones stupid enough to stay behind got ripped apart by the dragonets, shredded by Quentin’s music, blasted to bits by Merrin’s magick, or vaporized in seconds by the tongues of white fire emenating from Jesse’s body.

Leo managed to catch his breath.

His peryton snorted, its red eyes narrowed.

It was a male, he realized. A young male of about five years old, and was now entirely obedient to him.

“What the hell?” Cal, who’d made it to Lightning’s back, demanded.

“Don’t look at me,” Leo huffed, stroking his peryton’s silvery fur. “I managed to get a makeshift bit in its mouth and it stopped fighting me.”

Now that he thought about it, he felt sore and  _ incredibly  _ tired.

“You tamed a peryton!” Quentin (who was sporting several nasty cuts and bruises) exclaimed, grinning in excitement. “Nobody’s managed to tame one like  _ that _ in decades! Normally you can only tame them from the egg! Holy fucking shit!”

Jesse, who was hovering next to him, bleeding from his forehead and his chest, looked equally astounded. “Woah, it’s not killing us.”

Leo frowned.

He had no idea whether or not this was good news.

“Honestly,” Merrin sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose in dismay. “I try to take a nap for an hour or so and  _ this _ happens? What would you do if I wasn’t here? Cal, I thought narrowly escaping  _ Darth Vader _ of all people would’ve taught you better.”

BD-1 beeped defensively.

“What’s he saying?” Jesse asked.

Cal scowled. “I  _ would’ve _ made it out without help if I had another rebreather.”

“But you didn’t,” Merrin retorted grumpily.

Leo decided not to ask about it.

“Ooh, they’re fighting,” Quentin said, grinning.

“Oh, shut the hell up,” Leo sighed in exhaustion, glancing down at the desert far below and wondering if flinging himself to the ground below would be more tolerable than listening to _more_ complaining. 


	13. Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little backstory on Red and Luke’s relationship

_ Six months ago…  _

  
  


“So how are you?” Luke asked.

Red raised her eyebrows, turning the volume on the video call a little louder.

He’d been acting more irritable than usual in the past few weeks. Not only that, but he’d been going off on more and more trips like this with little explanation. Currently, he was video chatting with her, and he had a new bruise on his jaw.

“You okay?” Red finally asked.

She may have been a shitty friend, but she was  _ Luke’s _ shitty friend.

Also, he was one of the few who still treated her like an equal after… well, the incident where she’d gone crazy.

When she’d forced herself to stop referring to herself Petra.

Luke scowled. “Peachy.”

Red scoffed.

“Fine,” Luke grumbled. “Something’s happening. Tremors in the Force. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is, and I think I’m on to something big. I can’t tell you what, though. I don’t want to get you hurt if I don’t have to.”

Red frowned. 

She didn’t like the sound of that at all. 

She knew the Force, even though she wasn’t a Jedi or a Sith. Ever since she’d first run into Luke on Endor, she’d been familiar with Luke’s uncanny ability to sense danger before anyone else did. 

She’d chalked it up to be almost like spot-on anxiety. 

Well, she trusted Luke’s judgement. If something dangerous was going on in the universe, there likely was. Red had learned her lesson when it came to listening to Luke. 

The last time she’d disregarded him, hundreds of people had died.

By her own hand. 

“Well what’re we gonna do?” She asked. “How bad are these feelings?”

Luke heaved a sigh. 

“I could be wrong,” he murmured. “It’s more like a weird uncomfortable feeling and not angry butterflies.”

Red huffed. “That’s not helpful.”

Luke nodded in exhaustion. “Can you talk to people? Ask if they’ve seen anything odd. I’m not sure if it’s happening everywhere.”

Red frowned. 

She’d had people bug her like that before, and saying she didn’t like it was an understatement. 

“Fine,” she huffed. “But if this backfires, don’t blame me, man.”

Then she started to disconnect the call, but then Luke waved his hands hastily. 

“Wait,” he said nervously. 

Red paused. 

Something about Luke’s tone was… well, weirdly scared, for lack of a better word. Not very in-character for Luke, who’d once taken on the leader of an undead army while armed with nothing but pure spite and a heavy length of metal piping.

  
“I wanted to tell you something,” he continued. “I know you’re dedicated to helping out with the Alliance and fighting back against anything bad that pops up, y’know, keeping the peace in the universe, and I know you like having me as a partner—“

Red chuckled.

Now those were some of her tragically few fond memories. 

When the Great Galactic War had ended, part of Red had never settled down; so used to the adrenaline rush and excitement of battle that she got bored and jittery in a mundane life. 

So she’d joined the Alliance’s program to eradicate the last remnants of the Dark Forest and their allies, the Galactic Guild of Protection. 

Luke had partnered with her, and, well, they’d had a great time chasing down escaped war criminals together. 

“Yeah, good times,” Red laughed. 

Luke flinched. 

Red hesitated. She knew that twitch. 

“Okay, what aren’t you telling me?” She asked, suddenly apprehensive.

Luke sighed, visibly deflating. 

“At the end of this year, I’m retiring from the Guild,” he said. “I want to settle down, Red. This is gonna be my last mission, okay? After I work this out, whatever it is, I’m done. For… ever.”

Red froze. 

Blindsided, that was how she felt. 

_ “What?”  _ She spluttered furiously. “You’re retiring? Why would you—“

“Shiro wants me to, okay?” Luke retorted, his voice sharpening into a familiar growl. “And I agree with him. I’m not a kid anymore, Red. I’m married. I’m almost thirty. I’ve spent a long time running around and almost getting killed on the daily and I just want to take a rest. I’m sorry.”

Red stiffened. 

She knew Luke had a point. He  _ was _ happily married, and of course he wanted to settle down and try to heal the trauma he’d gone through and get a break from fighting.

So why the  _ hell _ did she feel so hurt?

“It’s not like I’m disappearing forever,” Luke continued. “I’m still gonna be in high command, but not active duty anymore. And we’re staying in Beacontown. We’re buying a house there. I just hoped you’d understand—“

“How long ago did you plan this?” Red hissed. “Who else have you told?”

“Everyone,” Luke sighed, not meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to approach you with it.”

Red felt another pang of anger. 

“What, could you not trust me?” She spat. “Did you think—“

“Petra.”

Red flinched and fell silent at the sound of her old name.

Luke was glaring angrily at her, his expression colder than dry ice, his arms folded across his chest. 

Now that she was looking at him closely, Red realized how  _ tired  _ Luke looked. 

His blond hair looked duller now, and there was a  _ grey hair  _ just above his eyebrow. His eyes were narrowed, and Red could see the creases around them and the shadows below them from a lack of sleep. The scars on his face had faded, surprisingly, even the one that went from the corner of his jaw to the middle of his cheek. 

Luke looked… older. 

“This isn’t your choice, Petra,” Luke said darkly. “It’s mine. I’m retiring from active duty this year, and that’s final. Don’t you get pissed.”

And with that, he disconnected the call.

Red just stared at the wall. 

She was used to people she cared about leaving her behind. A little too used to it for her own good. 

But Luke, the one living person who’d stuck with her…

She grimaced and forced back tears. 

Red hadn’t earned the title of Catalyst for nothing. She was like a magnet for tragedy and suffering, and it seemed that the universe had it out for her. 

She certainly hadn’t earned her other title, The One With No Trust In Tomorrow, for no reason either. 

With an angry growl, she slammed her datapad on the table, cursing every ounce of shitty luck and all of the bad decisions she’d ever made. 


	14. My Ghost Problem

“Yeah, it’s me,” Jean growled. “Now can you cut me loose?”

The altean scowled. 

“I thought you were getting a kyber crystal with Luke. How the hell did you get to Coruscant?”

_ Coruscant? _

Shit, Shadowfire had taken him much farther away than he’d thought.

“So are you gonna untie me or not?” He hissed, straining against the cables in frustration. “We don’t have time!”

The altean raised an eyebrow. 

Then they tapped an earpiece Jean hadn’t noticed before. “Uhm, Red? Can you come here? I think I found… what you wanted to look for.”

An awkward pause followed. 

Seconds later, Red skidded through the door, breathing heavily. 

“Damn those stairs!” She hissed. 

Then she saw Jean, and her face lit up with surprise and alarm. 

“Holy shit! I  _ wasn’t _ going crazy!”

Jean met her eyes with an angry glare. 

He didn’t have time to deal with this. Not with Shadowfire currently impersonating him and the fate of existence resting once again on his shoulders. 

“Get met out of these damn restraints,” he growled, “or I’ll make you.”

“Chill,” Red huffed, pulling out a hunting knife. It must’ve had a plasma blade, given that it sliced through the cables like they were butter. 

Jean sat forward, and tried to stand. 

Searing pain flooded up his flesh arm and through his body as the cuffs shocked him. 

He stumbled and fell, and the cuffs kept up their assault, and Jean screamed. 

He could smell burning flesh. 

“Shit!” Red yelled. “Shit, Beau, help me get those things off him!”

Finally the pain stopped. 

Jean groaned, slowly reaching up to touch his head. He could taste blood in his mouth, probably either his nosebleed from earlier or from biting his tongue. 

“Ow,” he growled, inspecting the steaming ring of flesh around his wrist. 

“How the hell did you get here?” Red demanded. “You went with Luke, didn’t you? Ilum’s a long way from here, and in another reality, for that matter.”

“Funny story,” Jean growled, unsteadily struggling to his feet. 

Then he stumbled, gasping in pain. 

Red quickly caught his arm, and she and the Altean helped him back up. 

Then, as they limped out of the room, he explained how Shadowfire, the embodiment of his guilty conscience and past atrocities, had gained a physical body and was now impersonating him. 

An awkward silence followed. 

Red was just staring at him with an alarmed and shocked expression. 

“The fuck?” She finally blurted. “Jesus Christ. Shit. We’re too far away from Ilum to get a message to Luke, and hell knows where they are. Oh, geez, your face is all bruised.”

“You know,” the Altean suggested. “The person we came to Coruscat could help us with Jean’s problem. He’s an old acquaintance of mine. Knows quite a bit about Mapleshade’s plots. He’s also very good at memory magic, which is why we were going to him in the first place. I’m Beau, by the way.”

Jean grunted. 

Then they made it to a small starship with  _The Prowling Ocelot_ painted on the hull sitting in an abandoned hangar, the bay doors sitting wide open. 

Jean froze when he saw the man sitting between them, but then relaxed. 

It was just Lukas, cleaning an arrow.

He brightened when he saw them.

“Oh, hey!” He exclaimed, setting down his arrow, and Jean noticed the distinct white scar on his temple.

Lukas frowned when he saw him. 

“Uh,” he said nervously. “Red? Who’s that guy? He looks like Jesse, but—“

“This is Jean,” Red cut him off. “He’s just an alternate reality version of Jesse. Something happened to him, and now he’s with us.”

Jean did a double-take. 

“What happened to him?” He asked, squinting. Lukas’s hands were shaking as he held his bow, and when they’d first met Lukas’s hands had been as steady as a rock. 

“Got hit real bad in the head,” Beau remarked. “Suffering from amnesia.”

“That’s why we’re going to Beau’s friend here,” Red added. “Lukas saw something about Mapleshade’s plans before he got hit. I’m beginning to think that that’s why they targeted him when we got attacked.”

Jean winced. 

He remembered the attack. An alternate version of the late Breezewing had attacked him, knocking him into another reality, and well… 

The rest was history. 

“G—good to meet you, Jean,” Lukas said hopefully. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jean grumbled. “Let’s just go find this lead. Maybe this guy can help me out with my ghost problem.”


	15. Wyvern’s Den

Several bacta patches, a few tabs of healing medicine, and a cup of coffee later, they had landed their small ship in front of a large building on the lower levels of Coruscant with a glaring neon sign that Jean couldn’t read.

He mentally cursed his dyslexia.

“What the hell does that say?” Red asked, squinting. “That lettering is making my eyes go crazy.”

“The Wyvern’s Den,” Beau said cheerfully. “One of the top underground casino bars on Coruscant. My contact hangs around the lower levels, given he’s a highly wanted man and has a bounty on his head in countless systems.”

“Looks like it’s a high-class establishment,” Jean muttered, spotting the bouncer (a large male Devonarian wearing a business suit) out front.

“Don’t worry, I brought formal wear for you two,” Beau added. “And I brought an extra suit in case we ended up running into someone.”

They pulled open one of the supply crates, revealing three pristine black suits and an elegant sparkly onyx dress. 

Awkward silence followed.

“Dibs on the blue tie,” Lukas said quickly.

———

Jean felt uncomfortable in his suit.

He wasn’t one for formal dress. Suits were stuffy, ties were difficult, and you couldn’t move around without risking a tear in the expensive fabric.

He tried to conceal his irritation.

Not only did he have to wear a suit, but he  _ also _ couldn’t bring any weapons. He’d managed to finish his lightsaber to the best of his ability (but he had no idea if it would actually work when he’d inevitably have to fight with it), and it was the only thing small enough to hide in his jacket. Thankfully, he’d managed to conceal a switchblade in his shoe, but he doubted he’d have much time to get it out if shit hit the fan.

Then Beau, who was wearing that sparkly dress (and admittedly looked pretty good), pranced right up to the bouncer.

_ “Avete una prenotazione?” _ The bouncer growled.

Beau flashed a smile.  _ “No sono Beau. Ma sono un amico di Snowtuft. Queste sono le mie tre conoscenze. Siamo qui per affari ufficiali.” _

The bouncer narrowed his eyes.

Jean faltered.

_ Snowtuft? _

He knew that name.

Beau suddenly looked nervous as the bouncer glared at them.

Then he chuckled.  _ “Sto scherzando, buon amico. Sei il benvenuto qui.”  _

Beau relaxed, laughing good-naturedly as the bouncer opened the door.

Then they walked through a metal detector (luckily it didn’t go off at Jean’s and Red’s prosthetics) and through another door and into the casino.

Jean winced at the blast of music.

He could’ve sworn he’d hear Beau say the name  _ Snowtuft. _

He didn’t like this.

“Split up,” Beau said. “I’m gonna go find him and talk to him. When I say the code word over the comn, head to my location. We’ll attract too much attention if we stay together.”

“What’s the code word?” Red asked, hurriedly glancing over her shoulder.

Beau winked. “You’ll know.”

Then they headed off towards the hall that undoubtedly led to rooms that you could probably rent for the night.

Lukas, who was distractedly picking at his sleeve, wandered away towards the gambling tables, and Red headed to the roulette wheels.

Jean sighed in relief.

Then he made a beeline for the bar, ordered the strongest drink on the menu, and right as the bartender was advising he sip it slowly he knocked it back.

The bartender, a young Twi’lek woman, looked slightly alarmed, but went back to her station.

Jean quickly lost focus on the mission.

It was the first time he’d been able to drink freely since arriving in Beacontown, and it was safe to say he felt like absolute shit. 

First Mapleshade had come back, then he found out his last surviving childhood friend had been killed at the hands of someone he’d reluctantly begun to trust, then Andrew started getting all testy because Jean wanted to protect him, and  _ now _ Shadowfire was on the loose and everything was going to shit. 

At least there wasn’t anyone to stop him from drinking his feelings away now. 

He heard his earpiece crackle.

The noise was so irritating that Jean switched it off and gulped down the rest of his drink. 

He chuckled drunkenly. 

He stood up quickly to grab another shot from his tray, and winced as his head spun. Then he vomited into the nearest trash can, groaning. 

And then someone grabbed his arm. 

He yelped and lashed out, swinging his metal fist at his assailant. 

“Hey!” A familiar voice hissed. “Damn it, we have a mission! And you’re fucking drunk! Get your ass over here!”

Jean winced. Whoever it was sounded exactly like Phoebe. 

“Hey, Feeb,” he slurred, stumbling into the woman’s arms. “I missed you while you were dead. Is being dead fun?”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” the woman growled. 

“Ya’know, I think that dying would be cool,” Jean giggled, hiccuping and clinging to her jacket. “I should just die, because that would make everything for you guys easier.”

He giggled again. Yeah, that would be nice. Andrew wouldn’t have to risk his life to protect anyone anymore. 

Except maybe Jacob and Lee, but that was beside the point.   
  
  


Wait, no, Lee could handle himself.

“C’mon, don’t talk like that,” the woman sighed, dragging him down the hall with her. “You’re vital to this. And you’re fucking drunk now.”

“Drunk,” Jean cackled. 

Why was that so  _ fucking  _ funny?

Then someone was shoving him down in a chair, and he giggled as the fuzzy fabric tickled his fingers. 

And then there was a sharp pain in his neck, and he cried out. 

“Ow!” Jean snarled, lurching. 

The haze of alcohol suddenly lifted, quickly replaced by a headache in a matter of seconds. 

“That’s a shot of faerie dragon blood neutralized with some dissolved burdock root,” a voice remarked. “It clears intoxication quickly. So, what’s this about Shadowfire wreaking havoc?”

Jean glanced up, and froze. 

They were in an office with several couches and lounge chairs, the walls covered in newspaper clippings. Red was sprawled on one of the chairs, scowling, and an annoyed-looking Beau was holding an empty syringe. 

Lounging in a plush armchair on the opposite side of the table was a kid, barely older than sixteen at the most, with pure white hair and an ugly scar that ran all the way from his jaw and disappeared under his jacket. His eyes, pale blue and deadly, peered at him over round, orange-tinted glasses. There were plant leaves—healing herbs, maybe lavender—coiled around his left ear, and there were specks of crumpled plant matter on his clothes. 

The boy gave him a smirk. 

“Snowtuft,” Jean growled, blinking and trying to clear his head. “Son of a bitch, you’re still alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in the warriors series we hardly get to know anything about Snowtuft so I decided to put some of my own personal headcanons to use for this because I love the idea of him being a tiny little kid with the capacity for murder


	16. A Brief History of Evil Elves, Courtesy of the Harmonica Wizard

When they landed, the dragonets quickly flew away, leaving them alone in a large open meadow dotted with the ruins of an ancient town. 

That was where they set up camp. 

Leo couldn’t sleep. 

He kept fidgeting in his sleeping bag, counting the sparks dancing across Jesse’s back. 

He knew that as soon as he closed his eyes, Mapleshade was going to assault him with nightmares and likely threaten him again. 

But there was something else. 

Something about Quentin. 

Leo knew his chances of making a real friend were incredibly low, and falling in love was out of the question. 

He heaved a sigh and gave up trying to lie still, and headed outside. 

He was immediately greeted by the sight of his peryton (which he’d decided to call Steven), ripping into a bear carcass. 

“Steven, what the hell?” He sighed. 

Steven looked up, his muzzle covered in blood and gore. Then he chirped and went back to his meal. 

Leo heaved a sigh and headed off into the field. He remembered making plants grow with nothing but willpower before, and maybe he could try again. 

He sat next to a patch of wildflowers that hadn’t bloomed, and took a deep breath. 

He focused, staring at the buds. 

_ Bloom, motherfucker!  _ He thought, clenching his jaw.  _ Bloom, damn it! _

One of the buds suddenly opened about halfway, revealing a pretty purple flower the size of a coat button. 

Leo winced and sat back.

He felt dizzy. 

“Can’t sleep, huh?”

Leo yelped in surprise and lunged for his bow, but he’d only turned halfway when he realized it was Quentin. 

Given it was around midnight, he wasn’t wearing his goggles. His dark irises almost seemed to glow in the dim light of the crescent moon, and he was holding his bagpipes under his arm. 

He gave Leo a half-smirk. 

“What do you want?” Leo growled, turning back to his patch of flowers. 

“Well,” Quentin remarked, sitting next to him. “Drow are nocturnal. Humans are diurnal. And dragons tend to be crepuscular, which means my sleep schedule is shit and I have insomnia. How’re you?”

Leo frowned.

“Trying to figure something out,” he muttered. “I have… magic. That I’m trying to teach myself how to use.”

Quentin shrugged. “Nature magic? I saw you open that flower bud.”

Leo scowled. 

Well, he wasn’t  _ wrong.  _ More like half-right, since the Green Lion technically was a nature spirit. 

“Kind of,” he murmured. 

“Wanna see something cool?”

Judging from how Quentin’s eyebrows were arched like that, Leo had a feeling that even if he said no Quentin would do it anyway, so he nodded cautiously. 

Quentin reached into his pocket and pulled something out. 

Leo realized it was a harmonica. 

He gulped, hoping that Quentin’s music wouldn’t sound like a dying goat. 

Then Quentin shut his eyes and started to play, and startlingly it didn’t sound loud and unholy like his bagpipes did. 

The melody was soft and ghostly and seemed to echo through the field. 

Then Leo saw the faint silver glow that was coming from the wildflowers, not just the ones in front of them but all of them in the field. 

It was like a silvery mist was emanating from the petals as the blossoms opened. 

Quentin stopped playing, and the last few notes seemed to hang in the air. 

And then, to Leo’s fascination, the silvery mist curled up from the flowers and shaped itself into buildings, almost like magical holograms hovering above the field in the darkness. 

“These ruins used to be an elven city, thousands of years ago,” Quentin said, tugging him to his feet by the arm of his jacket. “Back before the elves and the drow became rivals. Back then, the drow were peaceful, and they were night creatures that drew their strength from the moon.”

He led Leo into a courtyard area.

“But then,” Quentin continued, his face bleached unnervingly pale in the light of the mist, “the drow ventured underground during the daytime instead of sleeping. They got corrupted by dark magic, and the elves had to banish them to the Underdark. Then they started worshipping the Spider Queen Lolth, after a drow village was attacked by a massive spider which they treated like a god. And then the priestesses learned how to channel dark magic and use it.”

Leo hesitated, watching fiery orange and yellow sparks devouring the silver buildings, and then the mist faded. 

“All that’s left of the drows and the elves living in harmony are ruins,” Quentin sighed, running his fingers over what was left of a column. 

“You ever find out what happened to your biological mom?” Leo asked, remembering what Quentin had mentioned about his past, how he’d been born out of illegal wedlock. 

“Sadly yes,” Quentin added, something dark flashing in his eyes. “I went on a quest when I was sixteen to find her.”

“Did you find her?” Leo asked. 

Quentin heaved a sigh, a bitter look sinking over him.

“Yeah, I did. But drow are really picky about bloodlines mixing and all that bullshit, so when I announced to her House that I was her long-lost son, she tried to kill me to keep her family name pure or whatever. But I escaped by a hair. That’s how I got this scar.”

He pointed to a large, ragged line that ran all the way up his right arm and disappeared under his sleeve.

Leo winced. 

Judging from the blackened quality of the scar and the faint, spider-like lines coming off it, he judged it was a wound from magic. 

“That looks like it hurt,” Leo remarked, absently rubbing the left side of his face, his bad side. 

“Question,” Quentin suddenly said, his demeanor quickly changing from bitter to intrigued. “Can you see out of your left eye? It’s all milky and fucked up.”

He waved his hand in front of Leo’s face. 

Leo flinched back. 

“No,” he muttered. “Stop that.”

Quentin smirked. “You know, you should get a fancy eyepatch. I think you would look cool with one. I know a guy—“

“No,” Leo blurted. 

He’d never wanted to cover his scars or his mutilated eye. He wanted people to see what he’d gone through. 

He didn’t plan on hiding his suffering. 

“Suit yourself,” Quentin said with a shrug. “I think we should head back to the tent. You need to sleep a little.”

Leo sighed in irritation. 

“Oh, don’t do that,” Quentin teased, punching him lightly in the arm. “I can tell you’re tired. Let’s go.”

And without warning, he leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. 

Then Quentin hefted his bagpipes on his shoulder and headed back across the meadow, whistling softly. 

Leo just stood there, frozen in shock. 

What the  _ fuck? _

He felt… happy, for reasons he couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

He chuckled quietly to himself, realizing that he was  _ blushing,  _ something he hadn’t done in years. 

  
One thing was for sure, Quentin seemed to  _ really  _ like him. 


	17. Memories Better Left Repressed

Leo quickly decided that no one else could know about that kiss. He had no idea how they’d feel about the fact that he was… well,  _ attracted  _ to Quentin, and especially so because they were both guys. He’d had a hard enough time when he’d first come out to his family. 

Leo heaved a sigh and sat in front of the wildflowers again, which had closed their blossoms in the darkness. 

He didn’t like thinking about his old family, but well… here he was. 

In his reality, the whole Witherstorm Debacle hadn’t happened until he was nineteen, which had left him plenty of time for a childhood.

Not a great one, though. 

Both of his parents had been Chinese immigrants from low-income families, and he was their only child. He’d been born in the US, and had spent most of his childhood in a small apartment in downtown New York. Then his mom died when he was in fifth grade in a car crash. He’d had one of his prophetic dreams about it, which made it an even more traumatizing ordeal for his nine-year-old self. 

Then his father had used the life insurance policy money to move away to a small town in Montana called Tanville. 

It was there he’d met his new friends, Mary, George, Pamela, and Anthony. 

And his rivals, Opal, Austin, and Jasper. 

Then his dad had remarried shortly afterwards, and his stepmom had been a tyrant. There had never been physical abuse, but plenty of guilt-tripping and manipulation. 

And then his dad had become an alcoholic, and… 

Leo still had scars on his palms from accidentally landing on a broken bottle while sneaking into the house through the basement window at fourteen after sleeping at Anthony’s house out of fear. 

Speaking of which, that was about when he’d started questioning his sexuality. 

He’d developed… feelings for Anthony back then, which had been alarming for a kid in his situation. 

Leo had wisely stayed quiet about it. 

That is, until he’d been caught at sixteen, kissing Anthony (who’d been out as bisexual since freshman year and surprisingly had feelings for him too) in the driveway after a date while he’d thought his parents were out. 

That hadn’t gone over particularly well. 

Well, worse than when he’d bleached his hair for the first time, but not quite as bad as when he’d been caught stealing alcohol. 

He remembered trying to cover up the bruises with Mary’s makeup. 

He’d moved out of the house as soon as he turned eighteen. 

Only a year later… 

That had been when the Witherstorm had been created and a terrifying and traumatic few weeks had followed, hiding in the woods with Mary and George, surviving on dried cereal and the occasional animal they managed to snare. 

And then Anthony had showed up on horseback and in armor, and had practically dragged them into the fight. 

They’d managed to keep the monstrosity busy with fireworks, distracting it long enough for Jasper to slip into a hole in its side and destroy it. 

But they’d gotten no credit for it. 

Leo gritted his teeth, remembering those idiots and their smug faces. 

He’d taken up archery shortly after his breakup with Anthony. Not long after, he’d realized just how good at it he was. 

Then the whole Sky City fiasco had occurred, and he’d received the beginnings of the scars on his face; just a simple scrape on his cheek from the tip of Jasper’s sword at the time. 

He’d been thrown in jail, and Mary and George had accepted a lesser punishment of a year of house arrest. 

Calling him  _ crazy  _ and  _ obsessed.  _

Leo had managed to break out after his third escape attempt, and he’d gotten his revenge on Ivy (the leader of Sky City, who’d sided with Jasper and convicted Leo), Mary, and George. 

His first three murders. 

Ivy and George had both been asleep, though, but Mary had been in the kitchen making some soup. 

He could recall how she’d screamed. 

It wasn’t like he  _ could  _ forget. The guilt and horror from those acts had been ingrained in his mind, haunting him. 

He wished he didn’t regret it. 

He wished. 

Then, he’d found the artifact, the Primal Stone. A crystal sphere that could control the four elements and accomplish amazing magical feats, and even bring back the dead. 

Then his first meeting with Mapleshade. 

She’d been so kind and motherly to him, training him nightly in the Dark Forest, and when he’d found the Green Nexus and tried to bring her back to life… 

Jasper. 

Jasper had found him, scarring his face and hurling the two of them and the artifact into the space between realities. 

Which had landed Leo in the middle of nowhere in an unfamiliar reality, half his face ripped open and blinded in his left eye, screaming in rage, knowing his enemy was dead and he’d never get revenge. 

“Bloom!” He snarled. 

Green sparks popped along his hands, and the entire bush of wildflowers suddenly bloomed. 

Leo winced. 

Blood was oozing out of his nose as he scrambled to his feet, staggering to the tent. His legs felt like jelly. 

Shit, making plants grow was tiring. 

He sat down hard on his bedroll, using the sleeve from his shirt that had been shredded during the peryton attack to sop up the blood from his nose, his head spinning the whole time. 

Well, at least  _ now _ he’d get a good night’s sleep, he thought, collapsing on his sleeping bag. 

It didn’t take much longer for him to doze off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after a lot of thinking I realized that just two parts isn’t going to be long enough for the full story so the Wasteland, Baby! series is officially going to become a trilogy, so hang in there close good friends


	18. The Enemy of My Enemy

“I’m well aware of that, thanks.”

Jean scowled. 

In  _ his _ reality, Snowtuft had bled out and died before the escape pod carrying him, Luis, and a lot of incriminating information had crashed in the fields near Beacontown. 

Apparently he’d survived in this one. 

“You know, it’s funny,” Snowtuft remarked. “I heard about Mapleshade coming back. StarClan sent me a message, which is  _ fascinating _ because they really have prejudices against us ex-Dark Forest warriors, you know.”

“I thought you were a medicine cat in your old life?” Jean grumbled. 

Wow, that shot was really working. He didn’t feel drunk anymore. Instead, he felt pissed off and hungover. 

“Yeah,” Snowtuft said, frowning, balancing a tarnished and blackened medicine cat’s dagger on his finger. “I was, but I’m pretty sure what happened in my old life is none of your business.”

“So,” Beau said, shooting Jean an irritated look. “Snowtuft. Lukas here is having some problems remembering things. Can you help?”

Snowtuft gave them a slightly disturbing smirk that a normal teenager would’ve never made. 

Jean resisted the urge to scoot away. 

Everything about this guy was strange, from the way he dressed to his physical appearance, which didn’t reflect his true age at all. 

Also, there was that feeling around him that Jean could only describe as cold. 

“Why not?” Snowtuft remarked. “Huh, if your hair was a different color, you’d look almost exactly like the Crux. Sit.”

“Crux?” Jean echoed. 

He wasn’t sure what Snowtuft meant by crux. The closest thing he could think of in comparison was how in his reality, everyone called Aidan the Legendary because of how he’d defeated Mapleshade and brought back peace. 

“The Blue Lion,” Snowtuft remarked. 

Jean felt a brief flash of anxiety. The only Blue Lion he currently knew happened to be hanging out with his own malicious doppelgänger. 

“No, not whoever you’re thinking about now,” Snowtuft chuckled. “The one in  _ this _ reality. Funny, his name was Lukas, much like you, Blondie. Now, sit down and take off your jacket.”

Jean bit his lip, watching nervously as Lukas pulled off his suit jacket and sat in the chair in front of Snowtuft. 

Snowtuft put his hand on Lukas’s forehead and shut his eyes. 

“What do you need to remember?”

Lukas had gone rigid, eyes open wide, a disturbingly blank look in them. 

He made a quiet squeaking noise. 

“He needs to remember a dream he mentioned having,” Red said quickly. “Said he had a dream that he couldn’t quite remember back when we left Beacontown. I think it was important.”

Snowtuft took a deep breath and slowly pulled his hand back.

There was a thin web of light caught between his fingers as he drew his hand away from Lukas, which started to glow so bright it made Jean’s head hurt. 

Well, more than it already did. 

“Get ready,” Snowtuft growled through gritted teeth. “This might be disturbing.”

Then he snapped his fingers. 

The strands of light suddenly flared brighter than the sun, and Jean hissed and covered his eyes. 

Suddenly it was dark again. 

Jean slowly uncovered his eyes. 

He froze, terror seeping into him and chilling him to the bone. 

_ No, he couldn’t’ve dreamed about— _

He was standing in a dark forest of leafless dead trees, the ground mucky, the air stale and reeking of mildew. The same cold, ghostly mist seemed to glow in the dim light of the bioluminescent fungi on the tree trunks, obscuring the starless void of the sky. 

Jean stared, frozen in horror as whispers of the dead swirled through the mist around him, and a pair of yellow eyes blinked open in the darkness. 

“Hello,  _ Twoleg.” _

That voice. 

Jean had a lot of voices that he’d gladly never hear again, but that one… that one was very high on the list. 

He had a gut feeling no one else in the room could see this but him. 

A haggard man limped out of the shadows, clutching his mutilated arm to his chest, his elaborate Dark Forest tattoos marred and ruined. 

“Tigerstar,” Jean stammered, narrowing his eyes. “You look like shit.”

Tigerstar gave him a rather censorious look. “I’m very well aware of that fact, Twoleg. And I’d appreciate it if you allowed me to speak.”

This wasn’t Lukas’s dream, he realized. 

Lukas hadn’t dreamed at all. 

The disgraced former leader of the Dark Forest had planted a connection in Lukas’s mind,  _ specifically _ for Jean. 

“I thought she killed you,” he spat, quickly backing up. “I thought she destroyed you permanently. How the hell are you back here?”

Keeping himself calm was proving a challenge, Jean thought. 

Tigerstar gave him a twisted sneer. 

“She failed at that,” he growled hoarsely, wobbling on his feet. “I ended up stuck in the darkest, most dangerous part of the Place of No Stars. Mapleshade’s _deceased_ minions have been hunting me since she woke, and I fear that my time is running out. Her living ones, on the other hand, are trying to find you.”

“What’s your point?” Jean demanded.

“My point is,” Tigerstar grunted, “I think we should join forces, because I want that insane molly dead just as much as you.”

Jean faltered. 

He’d met Tigerstar while training in the Dark Forest many times. The man had been the leader, the overseer of the living trainees. Except one day, after the inhabitants of the Place of No Stars had been resurrected (Jean liked to pretend he wasn’t personally responsible for that mess), Mapleshade, who’d felt cheated and jealous that Tigerstar had been accepted as their leader. 

He’d learned that her jealousy had surfaced because Tigerstar had at one point been her student, and she thought she deserved leadership given that she was much older and more experienced. 

So she’d killed Tigerstar in his sleep. 

And now, Jean was standing in front of what was left of him, bargaining.

“You’re joking,” he snapped. 

Jean hated the Place of No Stars. It put him on edge, and he half-expected several undead warriors to crash through the undergrowth and attack him at any given second. 

“I wouldn’t bargain with a kittypet or a Twoleg such as yourself unless my half-life was on the line,” Tigerstar hissed. “And I knew that you wouldn’t let me enter your dreams. I wouldn’t’ve gone to all this trouble to contact you unless it was absolutely necessary.”

Jean frowned. 

Tigerstar  _ did  _ look bad. 

His greying cornrows and beard were tangled and matted with dirt and his own blood, and his body was riddled with infected, swollen wounds. The massive, glowing scar on his stomach, his death mark, looked like it was festering, and his obsidian eyes were sunken. His blazing yellow pupils were slitted with pain, and the arm he was cradling was obviously broken. 

Worst of all, he was clearly barely on his feet and he kept coughing and spitting out blood. 

Jean bit his lip. 

Tigerstar was manipulating him again, his logic screamed. He couldn’t risk getting… controlled again. 

“I made this connection so I could reestablish a bond with you,” Tigerstar growled. “I’m deeply ashamed that I need to request assistance from a Twoleg. But I have to get rid of Mapleshade before she destroys the one place I have left to rule, and reclaim my rightful place as the king of the Place of No Stars. I can help you destroy her,  _ and _ that insidious doppelgänger of yours, but  _ only  _ if you help me regain a physical form.”

Jean clenched his jaw, debating his scant amount of options. 

Option one: Yell “FUCK OFF!”

Then they’d be back to square one with the whole  _ getting rid of Shadowfire and saving the universe  _ thing. 

Option two: Take up the offer. 

Then he’d have to sleep with one eye open and hope Tigerstar wasn’t going to kill him and then run amok, wreaking havoc the first chance he got, but he’d possibly have a powerful ally. 

Against his own better judgment, option two seemed slightly more appealing. 

“Deal,” Jean blurted. 

Tigerstar’s eyes lit up in surprise. 

“I was expecting you to say no,” he remarked. “But then again, you were always full of surprises when you were a trainee here, Jean Orion.”

Jean forced down another wave of fear. 

“Don’t remind me,” he snapped. “Now how do I resurrect your musty ass?”

“Find the Red Nexus,” Tigerstar replied, urgency in his voice. “When you get there, use the power of your Lion. You’ll need that fancy spear that belongs to the Altean, though. You’ll see why.”

Jean started to protest. 

A piercing shriek cut through the mist, and fear flashed in Tigerstar’s eyes. 

“My time for now is up,” he hissed, drawing the spear on his back. “You have three days before my strength fails to find the Nexus on Mustafar. Go!”

Then he dashed off into the mist, and the Dark Forest disappeared. 

———

“Jean? Jean!”

Jean groaned and blinked. 

Red was standing in front of him, snapping her fingers in front of his face, a worried look on her scarred face. 

“Fuck,” he muttered. 

Well, his headache was back after his visit to cat hell, and it felt worse. 

“Oh, you’re okay,” Red sighed in relief, stepping back. “Snowtuft did this weird magic thing, nothing happened, but then you and Beau passed out.”

“I told you it had to have worked!” Snowtuft snapped. 

Beau, who was groaning and rubbing their eyes, paused to shoot him an annoyed look. 

Suddenly Lukas, who must’ve left the room while he was unconscious, burst in with a frenzied look on his face, panting like he’d just been sprinting. 

“Guys,” he blurted. “Guys, I remembered something.”

“Remembered what?” Red asked. 

Jean could hear hope in her voice. 

“The people in white and red!” Lukas yelped. “They’re fighting for somebody called Arai!”

“Yeah,” Red replied. “And they—“

“They’re here!” Lukas fretted, terror in his voice. “Outside!”


	19. Casino Brawling For Beginners

They made it into the casino right as all hell broke loose. 

They might’ve missed the initial chaos, had Snowtuft packed up his stuff quicker, but of course he was slow. 

He’d shoved a small wooden box about the size of a three-ring binder into Lukas’s hands, instructing Lukas to keep the contents safe, even though nobody knew what was inside. 

Red had gone out to stall Arai’s guards. 

That went about as badly as Jean had been expecting, because when they left Snowtuft’s office, he heard Red shout at the top of her lungs:

_ “YOU WANT MY CREDENTIALS? GO GET ‘EM! STREET SMARTS!” _

And  _ then _ pandemonium ensued. 

Jean yelped and ducked behind a poker table, screams filling the room and the sounds of blows and bullets flying. 

He pulled out his lightsaber and switched it on.

Nothing happened but a couple of teal sparks sputtering out the top. 

Jean swore in frustration. 

He slapped the casing. 

Then the blade came to life in his hands, glowing a brilliant teal color, and he grinned, silently pumping his fist. 

He jumped up and charged into the fray. 

“Jean!” Beau yelled, currently up on a balcony with their spear out, slashing violently at two men in red and white. 

Their dress was ripped off at their knees, and they looked like they were losing. 

“Yo, candy canes!” Jean yelled. 

He took a deep breath, and, hoping his lightsaber was working properly, he leapt up onto a table, grabbed onto the balcony railing, and swung himself up. 

The first guard turned, but Jean’s lightsaber had already impaled him.

Beau quickly cut down the other. 

“Thanks,” they said, breathing hard, a grin on their face. “You’re good.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jean huffed, dodging as a guard tried to smash a chair over his head. “Save the compliments for if we survive, buddy.”

Then he saw Snowtuft locked in combat with someone near the doors. 

Jean’s eyes widened. 

Oh, hell. Why had he thought that this was going to be easy.

To his disbelief, none other than  _ Silverhawk _ was attempting to hit Snowtuft, who was just too quick. 

Silverhawk was one of the older spirits in the Dark Forest. He was a bony man who appeared about twenty-five or thirty, with unkempt grey-and-black speckled hair and amber eyes. 

He wasn’t quite as old as Snowtuft, but the two of them had been bitter rivals. 

Also, Silverhawk was notorious for fighting dirty and a remarkable coward whenever he was challenged. 

And Jean had some scores to settle. 

“Silverhawk!” He shouted, standing up on the balcony railing, raising his lightsaber into the air. 

The man turned in surprise. 

Then Snowtuft nailed him in the jaw with a punch. 

Silverhawk snarled. 

“Orion!” He spat, attempting to cuff Snowtuft in the head. “Fuck off!”

“Yeah, good to see you too,” Jean said, wincing as Silverhawk kicked Snowtuft in the gut and shapeshifted. 

Then two cats, a mangy silver tabby and a pure white, were screeching and wrestling through the broken remains of a pool table. 

Jean heaved a sigh. 

Meanwhile, Red was fighting her way to the door through a mob of Arai’s soldiers and various angry gamblers, holding what looked like a lump of playdough. Lukas was with her, clutching Snowtuft’s box, looking terrified. 

Jean quickly jumped down, parrying blows and slicing weapons in half. 

Then one of the guards kicked Red and sent her plowing through a table stacked with fancy envelopes that probably had certificates in them, and Lukas was alone, completely surrounded. 

Jean broke into a sprint, blood roaring in his ears as he took down another guard. 

He had to get to Lukas. 

And then he banged his lightsaber on a table as he got knocked back, and something rattled loudly inside. 

And the blade switched off. 

_ Shit shit shit shit shit _

“No!” Jean screamed as he frantically tried to activate it again, and then claws sank into his scalp. 

_ Silverhawk.  _

He got a glimpse of Lukas getting kicked into the table.

With a snarl, Jean lashed out in a panic, trying to grab Silverhawk’s scruff as the tomcat bolted. 

There was a scream. 

Oh god, that sounded like Lukas. 

But then he turned back to the table, and Lukas was standing in the center of a circle of corpses in red and white suits, a furious look in his eyes and a letter opener in his hand like a dagger, breathing hard. 

Snowtuft’s box was safely under his other arm, intact. 

Then he faltered. 

“How the  _ hell _ did I do that?” He yelped, staring in confusion at the gore-splattered letter opener. 

Jean winced. 

“You trained to fight,” he grunted, fending off another guard. “Just ask Petra when we get back, I don’t know you very well.”

Lukas shrugged. “Guess I’d better take advantage of it, then.”

He ran towards the doors. 

“Run!” Red suddenly yelled, exploding out of the wreckage of the table with a frenzied look, nailing Silverhawk with another punch on the way. 

Silverhawk snarled in frustration. 

“Back the fuck off, Silverware,” Jean snarled, giving his saber another smack. 

It stopped rattling and turned back on. 

Silverhawk bared his teeth, raising his deadly set of knives. 

Then they collided. 

Jean ducked the first blow, remembering the weaknesses in Silverhawk’s fighting style, and managed to land a punch. 

Silverhawk snarled. 

Quicker than Jean anticipated, the man sliced his collar and kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling. 

“I wasn’t kidding!” Red shouted from the door, Lukas, Beau, and Snowtuft scrambling after her. “I planted a bomb in here and it’s going off in ten seconds!”

Silverhawk’s eyes flashed with alarm, and he abandoned Jean on the floor

Jean couldn’t tell if Red was bluffing. 

But then he saw Snowtuft’s box, laying over by the window. Lukas must’ve dropped it, Jean realized. 

He swore and bolted, vaulting over a table and decapitating a guard who tried to stop him as he snatched up the box and rammed his metal fist into the nearest heavily tinted window, the transparisteel shattering. 

And then, with all his strength, he hoisted himself up, ignoring his stinging wounds from a few hours ago opening up again, and jumped. 

An explosion echoed behind him, smoke billowing out the broken window. 

Huh, so Red  _ hadn't _ been bluffing. 

And then he hit another roof roughly three stories down. 

Jarring pain exploded through Jean’s body, white-hot and blinding, and shards of glass stabbed at his hand and legs as he hit the ground rolling and scrambled backwards, snarling curses and in pain. 

He realized a shard of glass had ripped open his shin.

Grimacing, he tore off his right sleeve and tied it over the wound to temporarily staunch the flow of blood.

Then he struggled to his feet and broke into a run, ducking around corners and scrambling (with great difficulty) up ladders and away from the club. 

And then he caught sight of the stitches on his flesh wrist again. A few had ripped out, leaking blood down his arm and staining his dress shirt.

Jean snarled in irritation, skidding to a halt on the ledge of a window in an abandoned building. 

The tracker!

Shit, he’d completely forgotten about the damn tracker Shadowfire had sewn into his body. 

Jean glanced at his discarded suit jacket, remembering the knife he had. 

He pulled it out, setting the box down.

And then, gritting his teeth, he cut open the stitches and the tender new skin that had formed over the wound, letting out a loose, guttural scream of agony. 

His vision blurred red as he forced himself to wedge his metal fingers into the cut, blood rushing down his arm. 

Jean bit back another cry of pain. 

It took him several agonizing seconds to find the the tracker out of the cut, but then he got a good look at the blood and gore-splattered, penny-sized capsule. 

“Shadowfire, you whore,” Jean hissed. 

That thing wasn’t a tracker. Shadowfire hadn’t sewn a tracker into him at all. 

It was just a metal message capsule, one that you attached to the foot of an Archidaean carrier bird. 

With shaking hands, Jean opened it. 

The tiny slip of paper quickly became stained with blood as he fumbled with it and unfolded it, and his fury swelled when he read the single, crudely-written word on it. 

_ bitch _

Jean’s anger hit critical mass. With a shout, he hurled the capsule off the roof with all his strength, watching it fall. 

Then he crumpled to his knees. 

He hastily tore some strips of fabric off his other sleeve and wrapped them around the gash.

There was too much blood. 

His vision tilted alarmingly. 

And then he saw the  _ Ocelot  _ hovering next to the roof, with the bay doors open, and Beau was waving wildly.

“Jean!” They shouted. “Jump!”

Jean forced himself back to his feet, staggering towards the roof as fast as he could, and flung himself onto the ship. 

He crashed into the floor, crying out. 

He hurt so bad, it felt like someone had set his body on fire. 

Jean’s vision swam. 

“Oh,  _ fuck  _ that’s a lot of blood.” Beau’s voice sounded strangely far away. 

“How are you feeling?” Snowtuft’s voice, tense and even, came from above his head. “Jean, please answer if you can.”

“Great,” Jean croaked sarcastically. 

Oh god, he’d bled through his makeshift bandages  _ already. _ This was bad. 

Also, his ankles  _ really  _ hurt. 

That was his last coherent thought before he finally blacked out. 


	20. A Troubled Mind

Andrew knew something was wrong. 

Okay, he’d been pissed at Jean for trying to insist that his life was worth less than the mission. But he shouldn’t’ve stormed out like that. 

And he shouldn’t’ve bolted, either. 

He’d been so spooked by that deranged look of fury in the eyes of the doppelgänger that his ability to reason had vanished and he’d dropped everything and ran. 

And now Jean was missing. 

He stared at his shaking hands, trying  _ so so so  _ hard to calm himself down. 

It wasn’t working. 

_ Jean I’m sorry _

_ Jean I’m so fucking sorry _

Suddenly his guilt and fear hit critical mass, and he punched the wall of the  _ Falcon’s  _ infirmary. 

His metal fist put a dent in it, and Andrew hissed in pain. 

He pulled down his shirt collar, wincing when he saw the scabs where metal met scarred flesh; slowly breaking open. 

He’d have to get those treated. 

The first time he’d had to adjust to a prosthetic limb, he’d had to do it quickly in a dangerous environment. Here, however, he could’ve done it safely. 

But he’d heard that the man he loved was leaving, and still under the effects of painkillers and anesthesia, he’d ran. 

Maybe because being in a hospital for his recovery made him antsy, constantly remembering the last time and the constant threat of a bullet in his skull. 

Now he regretted it. 

Jean was just so damn  _ stubborn _ and he couldn’t think of his own wellbeing!

Then the door slid open. 

It was the weird guy… Hawkfrost?

“You seem troubled,” the man remarked, picking up some antiseptic and a fresh roll of bandages. “And you’re bleeding everywhere. How did you even make it out of the hospital without collapsing halfway through the door, Green-Eyes?”

Andrew hesitated. 

Hawkfrost was a strange,  _ strange _ man, but he wasn’t identifying Andrew by his biggest deformity or his unwanted tattoos, which was somehow comforting. 

“Well,” he muttered, tugging his shirt off and taking a seat as Hawkfrost unscrewed the bottle, “I have a bad experience with hospitals and medical in general. And when I want to get out of a place, I can. It’s what I was made for.”

Hawkfrost hummed thoughtfully, but didn’t pry further. 

Andrew gritted his teeth as the antiseptic stung his surgery cuts, more blood leaking down his arm. 

“All I can say is that it was quite stupid if you,” Hawkfrost remarked, taking some gauze and wrapping the wounds. “You know, you were probably feeling woozy and exhausted. I recommend thinking about things before you do them.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes. 

There were many strange and…  _ inhuman _ qualities to Hawkfrost. 

Back home, he would’ve chalked it up to mutations from the radiation, but here, things were obviously much cleaner. In fact, when they’d arrived at Keith and Lance’s ranch, he’d realized that he’d never seen that much green in his _ whole lifetime.  _

Great, now he was feeling melancholy that Isa was still in Ground Town. 

But there was one thing that Andrew knew for sure: He’d somehow made it off that hellhole of a planet, and unless it was important, he wasn’t planning on ever going back. 

He had a feeling that the others felt that way, too, judging by how fascinated Lee looked and how happy May and Gill seemed and how excited Jacob had been acting, and how Paige had quickly developed an interest in learning how to fly a starship, as Luke—the scary blond guy with the scar who kept sneaking up on him—called them. 

But back to Hawkfrost. 

At first glance, he looked perfectly normal, except for the shock of white hair amidst dark brown and the strange blue markings just below the outer corners of his eyes. 

But up close… 

Hawkfrost’s fingernails looked longer and thicker than average, and they seemed to grow into points, almost like claws, even though they’d obviously been chewed on. His teeth as well looked more designed like a carnivorous creature’s than a human’s, and when he spoke Andrew couldn’t help but notice how his tongue was wider, flatter, and almost unnervingly longer.

Almost like a cat’s. 

And then there were his eyes. They were a cold, brilliant blue, like glacial ice, and his pupils were almost slit-shaped, like a reptile or a cat. And in the dimness of the antechamber, they’d caught the light of Petra’s sword, reflecting it. 

Andrew didn’t know what it was, but Hawkfrost wasn’t  _ quite  _ human. 

That was the creepy part. He looked  _ just  _ human enough that he could pass at first glance, but if you let your eyes linger too long, you could see the little details that weren’t quite right. 

Andrew had seen people with various mutations back home like that. 

At best, it was creepy.

“What are you?” He finally forced himself to ask. 

Hawkfrost laughed. 

“I’m a Felus,” he said. “Not a human, if you’re wondering. A human- _ oid.  _ Also a changeling. I can shapeshift into a cat at will, but in my human form I have many feline mannerisms and features.”

Andrew paused.

Suddenly an idea dawned on him, a game he’d used to play, tormenting the neighbor’s mangy old mutated tomcat with two tails to cheer Lee up when they were little kids (usually after something bad, like a gunfight) had happened and scared Lee so badly he cried. 

He reached over to the medpack on the table and grabbed the emergency flashlight from it, and focused the beam into a small spot the size of an apple. 

Andrew wiggled the beam on the floor. 

Hawkfrost froze, dropping the bandage he was holding, his pupils expanding so large you could hardly see his irises. 

He bolted after the light. 

It took every single ounce of self-control, every inch of restraint Andrew had to keep from cackling. 

Hawkfrost scrambled over a table, crashed into the wall, and dove headfirst after the light, a frenzied look on his face as he knocked over a tray of surgical equipment. 

Then the door opened again. 

It was none other than Luke, undoubtedly coming to check on him, Andrew realized, just as Hawkfrost screeched and slammed his hands down on the flashlight beam.

Fighting back laughter, Andrew moved the beam a few inches to the left. 

Luke looked startled. 

Hawkfrost snarled in rage and lunged for the beam.

Andrew moved it away at the last second, and finally lost his self-control and burst out laughing as Hawkfrost overshot it and accidentally tackled Luke’s legs. 

There was a startled “ _ OOF!”  _

Luke was sprawled out on the floor, an angry looking tabby cat sitting on his chest, lashing its tail. 

Then they awkwardly made eye contact. 

And then Luke started  _ laughing,  _ which was unexpected and slightly disturbing. 

“Holy hell!” Luke cackled. “Kriff, Hawkfrost, I seriously can’t believe that you  _ still _ fall for that!”

The cat growled and stalked away.

Luke got up, wiping tears from his eyes, still chuckling, and brushed himself off. 

“Andrew,” he said. “Good job.”

Andrew faltered, slowly setting the flashlight aside. Honestly, he had no idea how to respond to praise, especially from a guy who could move stuff with his mind and had the disposition of a baby enderman. 

Luke snorted. 

Andrew froze. 

“Your thoughts are  _ loud,”  _ Luke remarked, restacking the medical equipment Hawkfrost had knocked over, shaking his head. “Buddy, you need to learn how to shield yourself.”

Andrew scowled. 

“What’re you talking about?” He demanded. “I can handle myself.”

“No no no,” Luke replied, and with a wave of his hand, the pile of fallen hypodermic needles still in their protective plastic sleeves flew back into their drawer. “What I meant was mental shielding. You go up against a psychic like you are now, and bam, you’ll be toast in like, three seconds tops from them pointing out all your insecurities.”

Andrew shuddered. 

That’s right, Luke was a mind-reader. Or not really a mind-reader, more of an emotion-reader. 

The idea of someone else in his head terrified Andrew. 

Suddenly Luke froze in place, alarm flashing in his eyes, and he whipped around, staring at the wall. 

Andrew watched in confusion as Luke turned back around, looking unsettled. 

“Sorry,” Luke quickly said. 

Awkward silence. 

“I came to explain that we have a ship incoming,” Luke added. “And that you might like the occupant.”


	21. Not Quite Right

Andrew made it out of the infirmary and into the hallway before he saw him. 

Bloody nose, gritting his teeth in pain as Petra helped him down the hallway from where his (likely stolen) starship had docked with the  _ Falcon,  _ but  _ alive.  _

“Jean!” Andrew yelped. 

He rushed over and wrapped his arms around him, letting out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

“Yeah, hi,” Jean grunted. “Watch the ribs,  _ los querido.  _ Ow.”

Andrew faltered. 

He’d never heard Jean speak  _ Spanish  _ before. Well, he knew Jean could speak it, but the guy hardly ever did. 

That was new. 

He pulled back, wincing at the sight of the bruises on Jean’s face. 

“Look, I’m sorry I left you,” Andrew apologized, bracing himself for the worst. “Something spooked me. I wasn’t thinking. I just bolted. I’m sorry.”

Jean laughed weakly and patted his shoulder. “Water under the bridge,  _ cariño.  _ I think the bigger problem that I have is that son of a bitch stole my fucking lightsaber. When I get my hands on that goddamn—“

Andrew froze. 

Jean’s lightsaber was in the hands of his evil doppelgänger?

“He stole your  _ what?” _

Andrew turned, and almost laughed when he saw Luke’s scandalized look. 

Jean scowled. “My lightsaber.”

Petra arched her eyebrows, glancing back and forth between Jean and Luke, startled. 

“Are we gonna…”

“We’re not going  _ back,”  _ Luke snapped irritably, and unclipped one of the twin sabers on his belt, grumbling in frustration. “For now, hold onto this for me. It’s part of a set.  _ Don’t. Lose. It.” _

Jean scoffed. “Okay, geez. Got it, old man. Don’t lose this one.”

Petra laughed, and Luke actually took a step back in anger, and Andrew thought he saw sparks flicker across his fingers. 

Jean gave him a smug look. 

Andrew hesitated. 

Okay,  _ that _ was weird. Jean was usually never this sarcastic, but if he was, his delivery was usually grouchy and deadpan, not smug. 

“Why don’t you sit down?” He said, shifting Jean’s arm around him.

———

“And  _ then _ the bastard clocked me in the head and stole my lightsaber!” Jean finished excitedly. “He got away before I could kill him, though.”

Andrew winced. 

Right now, they were debriefing in the war room back in Beacontown—well, this alternate version of Beacontown without rad rat-infested slums—and Jean had spent the last ten minutes dramatically telling the story of his capture and Shadowfire. 

But there was something… off. 

Maybe it was how Jean’s eyes were a little  _ too  _ pale, almost more white than blue, and how his mannerisms were weird, but the  _ really _ unsettling thing was Jean’s sudden dismissal of music. 

He’d forgotten his Walkman on the  _ Falcon. _ Normally, the thing was practically glued to him. 

He probably would’ve been sitting in the back of the briefing room, ignoring the meeting with his headphones on, but he was almost disturbingly enthusiastic. 

Andrew didn’t know what was going on, but he had a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right. 

“Well,” Luke said, closing his file folder with a sigh. “It’s getting late. You guys should head to bed. Besides, I have to have a chat with my dad, which means sleep. See you guys in the morning.”

Then he got up and left. 

“See y’all later!” Petra remarked cheerfully. “Really looking forward to whatever torture Luke has planned for tomorrow.”

She left, whistling. 

“She reminds me of Paige,” Andrew muttered, watching her go. 

“Probably because she  _ is _ Paige,” Jean said. “Or at least a version of Paige, like a fucked-up photocopy. Does that make any sense?”

Andrew frowned. 

He had no idea what a  _ photocopy _ was. 

But he nodded anyway, given that he wasn’t in the mood for a long-winded description attempt. 

“Hey,” he decided to ask. “Are you feeling okay? You’re acting… different.”

Jean gave him a blank look. 

“What’re you talking about? Everything’s totally fine,  _ amado.  _ You’re just overthinking things again.”

Andrew faltered. 

Spanish again. 

So he decided to test him. 

“You never told me you speak Spanish,” he remarked, putting on a tone of mock-amusement. 

Jean arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t? Huh, I must’ve forgotten to tell you. It’s my first language, you know. I learned English when I moved to the States with my parents when I was a little kid.”

Andrew forced himself to chuckle along with him, squeezing his hand and kissing his cheek. 

Jean  _ had  _ told him. 

Months ago. 

“C’mere,” Jean grunted, shifting and slipping his arms around him. “God, you’re cute when you laugh.”

Okay,  _ that  _ sounded like Jean. 

Maybe he was overthinking things, and maybe he could ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his mind. 

“C’mon, we're going to the room they gave me,” Andrew sighed, pulling Jean up off the couch with his good arm. “I can tell you want to cuddle.”

So they headed to his quarters. 

As soon as they made it through the door, however, Jean spun him around and pushed him against the door. 

“Oh,” Andrew blurted, suddenly flustered as Jean gave him a come-hither look. 

_ “Quieres hacer algo divertido, amado?” _

“I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“No need,  _ chico.  _ Kiss me.”

Andrew opened his mouth to speak, but Jean didn’t wait for a reply. 

He leaned in and kissed him roughly, a hand sliding over his hip and down his thigh, to the back of his knee and tugging his leg up over Jean’s hip. 

Wow. Okay. This was weird. 

“I really hope these rooms are soundproofed,” Jean purred, pulling away barely an inch, “because I want to make you scream.”

“Hey,” Andrew grunted, squirming uncomfortably. “Luke told us we need to sleep. We can do this later.”

Jean hummed thoughtfully and rolled his hips against him, nipping his lower lip. 

_ “¿Estás seguro de eso?” _ He growled, and Andrew flinched when Jean lightly bit his collarbone. “ _ ¿Estás seguro de que no quieres que te bese? ¿No te gusta, amado?” _

“N—no,” Andrew said, a little more forcefully this time. “No. Not now.”

He snaked his metal arm in between him and Jean, pushing him gently away until they were standing apart again. 

Jean pouted, but didn’t try again. 

“Fine,” he groaned. “Okay, we’ll  _ actually  _ go to bed. Fine.”

And so they got ready for bed. 

Even with the air conditioning on, Andrew still felt uncomfortably warm under his blankets, so he resorted to stripping down to his undershorts and laying on top of them. 

God, the temperature between the Earth he knew and Terra was shocking, now that he thought about it. 

Then Jean, in fluffy sweatpants, flopped down next to him. 

“Hey,” he teased. 

Andrew huffed in amusement, snuggling up close to him.

They ended up dozing off together, and Andrew managed to dismiss that nagging feeling, despite his own better judgment. 


	22. Not Exactly Inconspicuous

Leo found out he’d dropped the quantum tracker somewhere in their fight with the perytons when he reached for it the next morning. 

“Shit!” He hissed angrily. “Shitfuckshit!”

“What’s wrong?” Jesse asked, currently trying to melt his hands through a chunk of stone. 

Leo winced as the rock glowed orange and bubbled under his touch. 

“Tracker’s gone,” he grumbled. 

If Mapleshade didn’t kill him, well, now Breezepelt would likely do the job. 

Now they had to go down to the grimy-looking spaceport at the bottom of the hill and find a ride offworld. 

This wasn’t going to go well. 

“Okay,” he huffed. 

Well, it would be easier with one other person with him, but his options were looking pretty sticky. 

Jesse drew too much attention and tended to cause large amounts of property damage when left unsupervised. 

Leo still didn’t trust Cal  _ not  _ to stab him in the back while he wasn’t looking. 

And well… Merrin was terrifying. 

That left him with only one option, and it wasn’t exactly favorable. 

“Quentin,” he grumbled, climbing back onto Steven’s back, who chirped and nuzzled his hand. “Yeah, yeah. Quentin, you’re coming with me to find us a ride out of here. The rest of you, please, for the love of god,  _ don’t run off.” _

Quentin, who was currently taping a knife to his bagpipes, grinned. 

Leo winced. 

He had a feeling things were going to go, at very least, terribly. 

———

Leo tied Steven’s makeshift bridle to a hitching post. 

He really needed to buy a proper saddle and bridle somewhere soon. When he’d checked it, the arrow shaft (albeit being made of metal) was full of bite marks and clearly five seconds from breaking. 

“You know,” Quentin remarked, poking his arm. “I’ve been here before. There’s a cantina nearby.”

Leo grunted in agreement. 

They quickly found the dingy cantina about a block up the street. The sign on the door read  _ The Elfsong Cantina. _

The first thing Leo noticed was the ghostly voice crooning through the walls in another language, and then the patrons, all of them rough-looking. 

Quentin immediately walked off and started chatting with some strangers. 

Leo made a beeline for the bar. 

The bartender, a tall, thin man with ram’s horns and bright blue hair and glowing yellow eyes, turned.

“Welcome to the Elfsong Cantina. May I take your order?”

“Yeah,” Leo replied, squinting at the menu at the dim light, and swore quietly at how hard it was to read with only one eye in the dark. 

“Fuck it,” he growled. “Just bring me a shot of the Satyr whiskey. That’ll be all, thanks.”

He dropped a handful of galactic credits on the counter. 

The bartender frowned. 

“We don’t take those.”

Leo winced. 

He snatched the credits back, flustered, and pulled a gold coin out of the pouch he’d swiped from Empress Azulite’s hoard, hoping she wouldn’t detect the absence of a handful of money. 

The bartender nodded and took the coin, snapped his fingers, and handed Leo the shot he’d summoned from thin air. 

Leo knocked it back. 

Then Quentin slid into a stool next to him, holding his own drink and with a suspiciously damp-looking bloodstain on his left sleeve. 

“I found a guy and a ship.”

Leo raised his eyebrows in surprise. 

“You did?” He remarked. “That was fast. How far can he take us?”

Quentin scoffed. 

_ “He _ won’t be taking us anywhere,” he said, pulling out a ring of keys, smeared with drying blood. “Let’s just say I  _ tried  _ to take his keys politely, and he said I could have them, quote, over his dead body.”

Leo suddenly realized what he meant.

“You  _ killed someone?” _ He hissed. 

“What?” Quentin remarked, smirking and twirling the keys around his finger. “It’s not like he’ll need his ship back any time soon.”

Leo pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Okay, we’re getting the others,” he growled. “Would you keep the homicides to a minimum, please? No killing unless you absolutely have to? You’ll end up getting us arrested.”

Suddenly there was a scream from upstairs. 

“And  _ that _ would be the maid finding the guy’s body in the broom closet,” Quentin remarked. “I think we should go.”

“Goddamnit, Quentin!” Leo hissed.

He should’ve brought Merrin. At least her primary tactic didn’t seem to be _stab on sight,_ albeit being absolutely terrifying.

They quickly left the cantina and headed off down the street, and thankfully weren’t followed. 

And then, just around the corner, Leo saw the stormtroopers. 

He yelped and backed up quickly. 

Quentin followed his lead. “What?”

Leo grimaced. Just ahead of them, three stormtroopers in black armor were standing around Steven. One of them was trying to stick what must’ve been a parking ticket on his antlers, but Steven clearly wasn’t having it and was growling and snapping at them. 

“Of fucking course,” he snarled under his breath, spotting the maple leaf emblem on their pauldrons. 

“What?” Quentin hissed again. 

“Mapleshade’s troops,” Leo growled, slowly drawing his bow and nocking an arrow. “She’s getting impatient. Fuck, I have a feeling she’s ordered them to kill me or at least maim me on sight. Get out the knife bagpipes.”

Quentin grinned. “You just about read my mind,” he remarked. “Hold on, before we start a street fight.”

He kissed Leo on the cheek. 

Leo froze, trying to remember how to form a complete sentence. 

“For luck,” Quentin added. 

Leo stopped thinking and headed out from around the corner, and shot one of the troopers in the neck. 

Then Quentin jumped out, shrieking like a banshee, and cut down the other two. 

“That went well,” he remarked. 

Leo untied Steven, sure his ears were glowing red with embarrassment. 

And then, right on cue, a whole patrol of stormtroopers appeared around the corner, holding rifles. 

“Hey!” One shouted. 

Leo and Quentin both froze. 

Then all hell broke loose. 

Leo fired as many arrows as he could into the fray, taking out as many troopers as he could before he had to switch to close range combat and transform his bow into a sword. 

Quentin whipped out two shortswords and set to work, violently jamming his harmonica in his mouth so he looked like a deranged, purple-haired chipmunk. 

Leo was ashamed to admit that he had never been so in love. 

Then Steven rushed the troopers, impaling several on his horns, shrieking and snarling, probably still bitter about the parking-ticket-on-the-antlers bit.

Leo dove out of the way, skewering a trooper. 

Then he saw the squad leader in heavier armor wielding a riot control baton, purple energy crackling around the end. 

_ Purge Trooper.  _

They must’ve spotted Leo, because they swiveled their baton and rushed him.

Leo dove away from the first hit. 

He could hear reinforcements being called as he dodged and parried blows, and the frenzied screaming of a harmonica. 

“Get back here!” The purge trooper snarled, and Leo tried to stab them. 

His sword sparked harmlessly off armor. 

He swore in frustration, aiming for the chinks at the base of their neck. 

He was rewarded with the sickening sound of tearing flesh, but his hit apparently wasn’t instantly lethal because the purge trooper screamed and threw their staff at him as their dying act, and Leo didn’t see it coming. 

It hit him in the shoulder. 

Leo screamed in pain as the blunted tip hit with an awful cracking sound. 

He fell, grimacing when he saw how his arm was dangling at a sickening angle and every movement was painful. 

Damn it, it was dislocated. 

“Get on!” Quentin suddenly shouted behind him. “Leo! Get your ass on!”

Leo turned. 

Behind him, Quentin was fighting off more troopers, sitting on Steven’s back, bleeding from his forehead. 

Leo scrambled to his feet and ran. 

He scrambled onto Steven’s back. 

And then they were flying, swooping through the sky, away from the brawl and over the shipyard. 

“I lost my harmonica!” Quentin snarled, holding the keys in his hands. “That was a one of a kind silver dragon scale harmonica, damn it!”

“Well we could’ve gotten out faster if you hadn’t stunned me with that fucking cheek kiss!” Leo retorted.

He hissed in pain at his arm. 

Quentin smirked. “What, did you like it, Mister I-have-a-mission?”

Leo felt himself flush red. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he snarled, cradling his arm, debating whether and how to pop it back into place. 

Quentin snorted. “Ooh, you  _ liked  _ it.”

Leo growled in frustration and snatched the keys from Quentin. 

“HEY!” He snapped. 

Leo pressed the fob, and far below them, the lights on what looked like a Winnebago fitted with hyperjets and a cargo trailer with  _ Eagle 1  _ painted on the side door started blinking and flashing. 

“Down there!” He hissed to Steven, who trilled loudly and dove down. 

They’d barely made it into the  _ Eagle _ before the troopers spotted them again, shouting at them to stop. 

Leo cursed loudly.

Steven was barely going to fit. 

“I’ll distract them!” Quentin shouted, obviously sensing the dilemma. “Get Steven on board and take off!”

Steven squawked as Leo gave his large rump a shove. 

He managed to squeeze into the cargo trailer. He had a feeling even perytons couldn’t survive the vacuum of space, so he switched on the atmospheric pressurizing system. 

Then Leo ran into the cockpit and shoved the key into the ignition. 

The engines roared to life. 

Quentin suddenly crashed into the door, snarling in pain and clutching his side, the left lense of his goggles broken. 

“Can’t see!” He spat as Leo slammed on the gas. “Fucking daylight!”

“You okay?” Leo yelled. 

Driving with one arm was going to be a pain for now, but he’d manage. He was worried about Quentin, though. If the bright midday sunlight coming through his broken goggle lense had blinded him in that eye permanently… 

Leo decided not to finish that thought. 

“Amazing,” Quentin growled. “I can barely see. It’ll take hours before I can see clearly again, but aside from that I’m absolutely peachy.”

Leo winced. 

“Sit down,” he huffed. “We gotta go get the others before air support arrives.”


	23. Midnight Talks

After Jesse ended up almost setting the ship on fire six times, Leo had to banish him to the cargo trailer. 

Luckily Jesse didn’t seem to mind sitting with Steven. 

Now, the matter of his arm. 

He frowned. 

The shoulder joint was dangling at an odd, queasy-feeling angle, and the skin around it was bruised. 

Now that Leo wasn’t running on pure adrenaline, every movement hurt. 

“Ooh, that looks bad,” Cal, who’d been meditating on the ratty couch a minute ago, said, wincing. “What happened?”

“Happy-go-lucky here made me drop my guard right before we got in a fight,” Leo grumbled, jerking his thumb at Quentin and grimacing at the movement. 

Quentin scowled. “I lost my harmonica for you, damn it!”

Cal snorted. 

“Here,” he said, scooting over. “I’m gonna try and pop it back into place.”

Leo gritted his teeth through the pain as Cal carefully maneuvered his arm into place, then braced it. 

“On three,” Cal said. “One, two,  _ three!” _

He shoved hard. 

Leo screamed as white-hot agony flooded up his arm with a sickening crunching sound of cartilage tearing. 

Then the pain subsided to a dull ache. 

Leo wiggled his fingers and flexed his arm, sighing in relief. It was painfully sore and bruised, but at least it was usable now. 

“Thanks,” he said awkwardly. 

Cal opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again, eyes narrowing. 

Then BD-1 hopped up onto the couch, beeping with relief, enthusiastically bumping his head against Leo’s hand. 

[Here, take a stim. You’re still bruised.]

Leo chuckled weakly and took a stimpack from the small drawer in BD-1’s head, and applied it. 

He sighed in relief, rolling his shoulder as the healing stimulants kicked in. 

“So?” Merrin asked, stepping out of the bathroom. “Where to now? Should I try to cloak the ship?”

Leo winced. 

Well, he didn’t have a tracker anymore, so he couldn’t trace Petra. 

But he knew one place she’d likely go. 

“Set a course for the Terran System,” he said, drawing a shaky breath. “I think she probably went home.”

———

They ditched the  _ Eagle 1  _ at a small cantina several hundred miles south of where Leo remembered Beacontown to be. He knew it was highly unlikely this was the Beacontown he’d spent years searching for, but he had a strange, nagging feeling. What if… 

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. 

They’d sold the  _ Eagle  _ to a sleazy-looking human man and a strange alien that looked like he was half man, half dog (cough, maybe a furry, cough), and used the money to buy train tickets to Beacontown, and in no time at all night had fallen and they were well on their way. 

Their compartment was empty except for them, which Leo was grateful for. 

It was late, maybe two or three in the morning when Leo finally gave up trying to fall asleep. 

In the bunk above him, Cal was fast asleep, his breathing slow and even, and BD-1 was sitting on the droid charging port in the corner, his systems shut down for the night. Merrin was in the bunk across from him, curled up on her side, snoring softly. Jesse was in the bunk above her, muttering quietly in his sleep and shifting around, and Steven was curled up on the floor, his silvery wings tucked around his head. 

But Quentin, who was lying still in his cot; his breathing hadn’t evened out yet. 

He was still awake. 

Leo got up, regretting it already, and headed over to Quentin’s cot. 

He nudged him. 

Quentin grunted. 

“I know you’re not sleeping,” Leo grumbled. “C’mon. Let’s sit outside.”

Quentin arched his eyebrows. 

“So you’re… asking me to come spend time. With you. Alone.”

Leo scowled. 

Quentin just scoffed. “I’m just teasing, I can’t sleep either. Let me put shoes on.”

And so they slipped outside, standing on the narrow maintenance platform between the train cars, the wind whistling around them as the train shot down the tracks. 

The full moon glowed down on them. 

There was an electric fence, about eight feet high, around the tracks, lanterns hanging every fifteen feet or so, illuminating the tracks enough to deter the unsavory creatures that inhabited the wild regions of Terra at night. 

Around major cities, the fences weren’t like this, but out in the country, they had to be strong enough to keep wild creatures off the tracks. 

Leo remembered the various creatures, back from when he was young. 

The most common of the night creatures were zombies. Rotting humanoid beasts that weren’t particularly dangerous on their own, but they tended to wander in packs, almost like wolves. Luckily they burned in sunlight, but could escape it by skulking in the shadows of caves. 

Then there were spiders, which were easily the size of a large dog and equipped with a set of lethal mandibles and clawed legs. They frequented caves, and moved deadly fast. 

Skeletons were Leo’s personal least favorite. They were bony creatures that carried bows and arrows, their aim deadly if you weren't careful. Much like zombies, they burned up in the sunlight, but unless you smashed its skull, a skeleton you tried to dismember usually reassembled itself. 

And of course, creepers. Green, stubby-legged monstrosities that  _ looked _ relatively harmless at first glance (except for their soulless black eyes), but the catch was that they  _ exploded  _ if you got too close, in a sort of kamikaze attack. 

Leo hated those things. 

And then endermen. 

Endermen were terrifying eight foot tall, spindly-limbed creatures that looked almost humanoid, with jet-black skin and glowing purple eyes, particles of purple light constantly drifting around their bodies that gifted them the ability to teleport. 

If you managed to get a close-up look at their glowing eyes, though, you likely wouldn’t survive to tell the tale. Endermen took any form of eye contact as a threat, and would attack you while screaming horrendously. 

Leo had been on the receiving end of those screams more than once. 

“Woah, what was that?”

Leo turned to see Quentin watching the stars, pointing at a speck. 

Leo squinted at it, and chuckled. 

“Phantom,” he said. “They come after insomniacs here. Attracted to a severe lack of sleep.”

“You seem to know a lot about this place,” Quentin remarked. 

Leo heaved a sigh. 

“Yeah,” he murmured. “It’s most likely a version of my home planet that I’ve been looking for. I got lost a long time ago.”

Quentin hummed in acknowledgement. 

It was quiet for a while. 

“You aren’t… pissed, are you?”

Leo glanced over at Quentin, slightly confused. “What do you mean?”

Quentin sighed, kneading his hands in his lap. He looked tired and still battered from the fight earlier today. 

“The kisses,” he said. “I… am attracted to you. I hope that’s fine.”

Leo faltered. 

Honestly, he had no idea how to respond to that question. He didn’t  _ hate _ it. It was more… startling, really. 

He’d thought that no one would ever be able to like him after Anthony.   


He’d accepted that he’d be alone.

And then Leo remembered that Quentin didn’t know about his past, about the horrible things he’d done, about his shitty childhood and the blind rage he’d gone into for years. 

That made him feel horrible. 

“You… you don’t know who I am, Quentin,” Leo mumbled.

Quentin raised an eyebrow. 

“You can’t tell anyone this,” Leo continued, hoping for the best. “I’m not really just trying to capture Petra.”

“What  _ are _ you doing, then?”

Leo bit his lip. 

He had no idea how Quentin would react, and no way of predicting where his mission would go. 

But he was willing to risk it. 

He very hesitantly reached forward and took Quentin’s hand, and spoke. 

“Jesse, Merrin, and Cal are also people I’m bringing to my boss,” he said. “Her name is Mapleshade. She recently came back from the dead, and I’m doing this so she’ll trust me again. I didn’t originally plan to find Cal or Merrin, but those two are powerful. And Mapleshade plans to help me find a way home.”

Quentin was silent. 

“I’ve also done some fucked up stuff in the past,” Leo continued, sickening guilt welling up inside him. He had to stop and recollect the anger and distress that always came up, fighting back tears. “I killed my friends and the guy I loved because they betrayed me. I tried to get my revenge on someone and failed, which is why I’m lost in the first place. I’ve lied and blackmailed and backstabbed and killed innocent people so many times I can’t count. I’m not a good person. I could probably end up whipping around and killing you now. I don’t get why you trust me, okay?”

Silence. 

Quentin’s face was impossible to read. 

“Are… are you pissed?” Leo stammered, letting go of his hand. “I don’t—“

Quentin burst out laughing. 

“Are you  _ kidding  _ me?” He cackled, and Leo winced as he punched him in the arm. “I’m my mom’s mercenary! I couldn’t count the amount of people I’ve murdered in cold blood on both hands  _ and  _ feet! I have a death sentence and a huge-ass bounty on my head in  _ so _ many kingdoms on Gygax, too! You, love, are perfectly fine in my book. In fact, I’m on your side, as long as you’ll let me get in contact with my mom once we take care of this.”

Leo scowled. 

“Are you sure you won’t backstab me while I’m not looking?” He asked. 

“Oh, come on,” Quentin said, his lips quirking into a grin. “I hope I haven't misplaced it, but I’d literally trust you with my life, Leo.”

Leo froze.

Oh god, he was blushing again. 

“Ooh,” Quentin teased. “Your face is all red. Do you have a crush?”

Leo gulped. 

“Yeah,” he confided, hoping Quentin wouldn’t ask who. 

“What’re they like?”

Leo bit back a curse.

_ Shit shit shit shit shit,  _ how was he supposed to explain to Quentin that his crush was  _ him? _

So Leo decided to keep it vague. 

“Well,” he began nervously. “Uhm, my crush. My crush. They’re tall, not as tall as me though. Skinny legs, but could  _ probably  _ kill me if I wasn’t paying attention. Colorful hair, the most beautiful eyes. And… a lovely singing voice, too.”

He let his gaze linger on Quentin a little longer, and then the motion of the train car made their pinkies brush. 

Then Quentin’s eyes lit up, and he gasped excitedly. 

_ “HATSUNE MIKU??!!!?” _

Leo faltered, feeling what little hope he’d had slowly draining away. 

Well, shit. 

“Kidding,” Quentin laughed, elbowing him. Then he grimaced and rubbed his eyes furiously. “Shit, everything’s still blurry in one eye. Your face is a blob. A really attractive blob, but still.”

Oh, Leo was  _ really  _ blushing now. 

Usually people balked when they saw his scars and refused to look him in the eye, and awkwardly tried to reassure him that he didn’t look hideous. 

He hated it when people lied to him. 

But when Quentin said he looked like an  _ attractive blob, _ he couldn’t understand why that made his heart flutter. 

“You genuinely think I’m hot?” Leo blurted before he could stop himself. 

Quentin laughed. 

“Like, half your face is,” he teased. “The rest of it is fucking ugly, with all the scars and shit. Kidding, kidding! The scars are hot. Reminds me that you’re not afraid to do what needs to be done.”

The words made Leo smile. 

“Thanks,” he murmured. “I always hated my scars. You make it sound like I earned them honorably instead of getting my ass kicked while trying to kill a guy who caused the deaths of all my friends.”

Leo took his hands again, his voice dropping low and soft. “Depends on your idea of honor.”

A pause followed. 

They just looked at each other for a few moments, still smiling, the air between them heavy with tension. 

Then Quentin got up, chuckling. “You’re cute when you get all flustered.”

Then he went back inside, but not before stooping back down, brushing Leo’s hair off his forehead, and lightly kissing the eyebrow above his blind eye. 

Leo took a deep breath. 

A huge amount of weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he grinned. 

He was finally going home.

He’d finally avenge Anthony. 

And he had someone to help him. 

“Hey… Leo?”

Leo jumped in surprise, and glanced over his shoulder. 

He cringed. 

It was  _ Jesse,  _ shivering violently, even though he was wrapped in a fluffy sweater Merrin had enchanted to be fire and heat-proof. 

He looked distressed. 

“What’s up?” Leo asked nervously. 

Jesse gulped visibly as he sat down, fidgeting rapidly. 

“I keep getting these flashes,” he said tensely, pausing to shake his head as if to clear it. “Like, these little moments where I suddenly don’t know what’s going on at all and I almost start panicking. Or I just blank out, or I see… things. I can’t tell what’s real.”

He abruptly stopped talking and yelped, like someone had jabbed him with a hot poker, sparks shooting off him. 

Leo winced. 

Jesse’s mind was probably deteriorating from so much pure energy in his neurons, literally killing his brain cells. 

Then a goofy grin crossed his face. 

“I can’t touch anything without burning it,” Jesse added, rocking back and forth. 

Leo glanced nervously at the metal underneath him, but luckily Quentin’s cooling spell hadn’t worn off. 

“Do you remember anything?” He asked. 

Jesse frowned, his brow furrowing in concentration. “Little bits and pieces.”

It was silent for a moment. 

Leo bit his tongue, cursing himself mentally. He was turning Jesse in to Mapleshade, and she’d torture him mercilessly. 

Jesse, kind, powerful, half-insane Jesse, was going to die. 

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Leo sighed, an unfamiliar ache throbbing in his heart. “I am so sorry, Jesse.”

Jesse just stared at him like a curious kitten. “For what?”

“That you’re like this,” Leo blurted hastily. “That you can’t remember anything and your mind is… going.”

“Go…” Jesse giggled. “Let’s go to the beach, beach… Nicki Minaj.”

His glowing eyes and veins were easy to see in the darkness of the night, and Leo didn’t bother protesting when Jesse leaned on him, giggling and muttering nonsense to himself. 

“Is Jesse still in there?” Leo sighed in dismay as Jesse started playing with his boot laces. “I mean, uh, Serious Jesse?”

“Curd is the word,” Jesse mumbled, rocking back and forth again. “Curd is the word is the curd. Bird. Herd. Bird herd. Ha, bird herb birb curb.”

Leo winced. 

Suddenly Jesse sat up, glancing around rapidly, looking frantic. 

“Not good,” he mumbled as he got up, stiff and slow as if he was decades older than he really was, and padded back into the train car. “Not good. Not good.”

Leo let out a heavy sigh, gazing up at the moon. 

He felt terrible about this job. 


	24. What’s In The Box?

Jean groaned and opened his eyes.

He felt woozy and sick when he sat up, and swallowed down bile when he managed to stand. 

He was still in his now tattered and bloodied dress pants and shirt, but his shoes were gone, and there was a blood transfusion tube sticking out of him and a line of stitches holding the rough gash on his flesh forearm shut. 

He growled in frustration. 

As soon as he got his hands on Shadowfire, he was going to snap that bastard’s neck. 

God, he hoped Andrew was okay.

Deep down though, Jean knew Andrew was doing alright for now. Something in the Force told him that if something bad  _ did _ happen, he’d know.

Then Snowtuft walked past the infirmary, carrying that box he’d told Lukas to hold onto. 

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re awake.”

“What’s in the box?” Jean snapped. 

He was getting tired of this shit. Not only had he almost died for that stupid box, and there were lives on the line. 

He couldn’t afford another fuck-up that left him out of commission. 

Snowtuft scowled. “Would you go sit down? I practically brought you back from the dead, Jean. You lost almost a third of the blood in your body cutting yourself open like that.”

“I thought Shadowfire stuck a tracker in me!” Jean hissed, his anger boiling over. “I risked my life for your stupid box, so tell me what’s in it!”

Snowtuft narrowed his eyes. 

“What’s in the  _ fucking _ box!” Jean yelled.

He probably would’ve punched Snowtuft if a) he hadn’t been feeling so exhausted and woozy, and b) Beau hadn’t opened the infirmary door.

“Oh, for the love of the Ancients,” they snapped, glaring at them. “We don’t know. We’re trying to figure out how to  _ open _ the fucking box.”

———

A few minutes later, they were sitting in the lounge as the  _ Ocelot _ shot through hyperspace, staring at the box, which was sitting on the table. 

It was made of dark stained wood, a Voltron symbol burned into the center of the lid. The hinges were Haysian Smelt, according to Beau, as well as the metal inlays on the sides and the lid. The most disturbing detail, though, was the underside, when Red flipped it over; an image of an eldritch terror-looking phoenix burned into the wood, alongside the letters  _ LJP _ in fancy calligraphy. 

“LJP,” Jean murmured. 

He didn’t know why, but he felt like he should know the meaning. 

Were they an acronym?

Someone’s initials?

The only person he knew with those initials were those of Luis, his long-dead enemy;  _ Luis Jason Patterson. _

But that couldn’t be a relevant connection, could it?

Suddenly, Red blurted, “Pendergast.”

All four of them looked at her. 

Jean was struck by how pale Red had suddenly become, and she looked frightened and startled. 

“Lukas Jae Pendergast,” she said quickly, tapping the initials one at a time with her metal finger. “It’s his. This box, and whatever’s inside, was his.”

“The Crux?” Beau remarked. 

Lukas looked alarmed. “Uh, as far as I know, I don’t know anything about this box, so please don’t ask me.”

Then something clicked. 

“Your Lukas is dead, right?” Jean mused, the puzzle pieces snapping into place in his mind as he spoke. “When I was scrolling through the digital library, a lot of the research books and shit like that were under that name. Lukas Jae Pendergast. Hold on, Snowtuft, where did you get this?”

Snowtuft frowned. “I found it in a pile of junk in a dumpster behind the Order Hall in Beacontown.”

Red fell silent.

A cold look spread over her face, dark and angry. 

“They told me they locked it all up in the vault!” She snarled, slamming her fist on the table so hard it cracked. “They told me they saved and filed all of his writing and they  _ threw it out!  _ I knew I wasn’t fucking crazy!”

Awkward silence. 

“Fucking assholes!” She spat. 

Beau made a face. 

“Her Lukas—you know what, let’s just call him Pendergast to avoid any confusion—was a writer and an Altean alchemist. When he sacrificed himself and died, all his work was left behind, and apparently instead of being filed in the Beacontown vault, most of his physical writings must’ve been merely thrown away.”

Jean shuddered. 

Phoebe had personally overseen the storage of all of Aidan’s belongings back home, making sure nothing was stolen or lost as it was locked away in a vault. 

He understood why Red was so pissed off. Luke had mentioned Pendergast being her best friend. 

“How do we get the box open?” Lukas asked. “It has a phoenix on it.”

Beau frowned. “Maybe…”

They laid a hand on the lid, closing their eyes, and then suddenly the metal inlays started to glow. 

And then the lid popped open. 

“Little alchemy trick,” Beau remarked, looking a bit surprised. “I didn’t think it would work. But it did.”

Jean peered into the box. 

Sitting in the bottom were three objects.

One was a thick, leatherbound notebook easily thicker than the copy of  _ The Deathly Hallows  _ Jean had at his cabin, ink stains on the cover and the same three initials,  _LJP,_ roughly  etched into the leather, probably with a penknife. 

Next to it was a battered flash drive, its paint chipped and ruined. 

And sitting on top of these things was an envelope with  _ To whom it may concern _ scrawled untidily on the flap. 

“Holy shit,” Red mumbled, her hands shaking as she took the letter. “This is Lukas’s journal. His physical copy. He had dysgraphia, so he kept a lot of his journal entries in a digital log after… wow. He only wrote down the most dangerous and important stuff, and… fuck. Okay, I’m fine, I swear, I just…”

She stared at the letter, her expression both sad and melancholic, blinking furiously. 

Then she tore it open. 

She looked it over, alarm growing on her face, and then she slowly set it down. 

Jean squinted at the paper.

Jesus Christ, this guy’s messy handwriting combined with Jean’s dyslexia made the letter an illegible mess that he couldn’t read. 

“Can… can you read it out loud?” He asked begrudgingly. 

Red flinched. 

But she picked it up and began to read. 

_ “To whom it may concern, _

_ My name is Lukas Pendergast. If you’re reading this, my research has probably been cut short somehow, whether it be my death or something else. I’ve been studying Altean alchemy since I discovered my heritage, and I’ve been studying prophecy and how life energy and death seems to function for even longer. I enchanted this box to make it almost indestructible, and to find its way to you, whoever you are. But if you have it, well, the universe is in danger again and the threat I was afraid of found its way back. You’ll know, if you found this box in the first place. In this box, you’ll find my personal journal, and a video diary of my time fighting alongside Voltron. Be warned, certain people don’t want my research to exist, so a lot of it might not exist anymore. Also, I have a secret laboratory hidden on Mustafar, at the coordinates 18N 23E 45S 90W. Use the info wisely. Do  _ _ NOT _ _ let it fall into the wrong hands. Do your best to get rid of the threat, and if the renowned hero  _ _ Petra Johanna Wright  _ _ Red is still around by the time this box is opened, tell her that I said hello.  _

_ Best wishes,  _

_ Lukas Pendergast.” _

It was silent. 

“He’d been acting weird and paranoid ever since I lost my arm,” Red murmured, dismally touching the long-dried ink. “I chalked it up to his anxiety acting up because of all the stress we were under. But he was figuring something out. That must’ve been why he kept wandering off. I should’ve paid closer attention; I should’ve helped—”

“Oh, were you two…” Lukas asked, trailing off nervously. “…Together?”

Red scoffed. “Lu—Pendergast was  _ gay.” _

“Oh,” Lukas said quietly. But you were close, though? You act like it.”

Red nodded glumly, a crumpled copy of a smile crossing her face as she held the letter in her hands, obviously trying to memorize this piece of her late friend. 

“He was going to change the world.”

Snowtuft cleared his throat. “I think we should land somewhere and rest before we go anywhere. We’re all exhausted from the escape, and Jean, you’re bleeding again. Disinfect it before you go to sleep. Besides, it’s getting late.”

“What time was it when we trashed the casino?” Beau asked.

“About noon. It’s almost ten at night.”

“Okay, sleep it is,” Red sighed. “We’re heading to Mustafar soon. It’s time I reconnected with whatever’s left of my late best friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I‘m thinking about writing a standalone story about Red’s past and the events in her life that led up to the Wasteland, Baby! Saga so if you’re interested feel free to comment


	25. Pendergast’s Diary

Jean didn’t go to sleep after Red set the autopilot’s course. 

He waited until everyone else was asleep before he snuck into her quarters and stole the flash drive. 

Jean had a burning feeling Pendergast’s video diary would help him. 

Jedi stuff  _ and _ with Shadowfire. 

Stealing it was more difficult than he thought, though. Jean had to pick the lock on not only the safe Red had locked it in, but also the locker she’d hidden the _safe_ in. 

Luckily he didn’t set off any alarms, or (god forbid) wake Red up. 

She’d probably have stabbed him. 

Jean dashed back to the infirmary, and opened the laptop on the table. 

He plugged the flash drive in. 

The data took a few moments to load, but when it did, it only took a few seconds of scrolling for Jean to realize that the video diary folder was filled with hundreds of videos, ranging from only a few seconds long to almost forty-five minutes. It would’ve probably taken him weeks to watch every single one, so he chose the oldest one, time-stamped at 23:15 in August almost four years ago.

The very first video. 

He clicked on it. 

The window popped up, and the video automatically began to play. 

It showed a single person cockpit, the camera sitting on a dashboard. In front of the camera in the pilot’s chair, there was a young man in blue Paladin armor, maybe twenty-one, and Jean was struck by how similar he looked to Luis. 

It was creepy. 

The man had wavy snow-white hair, slicked back out of his face. Blue Altean markings sat just below his eyes. His eyes themselves, a piercing, electric blue, glinted with caution, and his hands were nervously fiddling with the bracer on his wrist. 

He looked very tired. 

“This is log day one,” he murmured. “I figured I’d start this. Shit’s been crazy in the past few days, not gonna lie. I mean, within a week I not only got launched into space, but also I’m apparently a fuckin’ alien. And we had to destroy the Castle of Lions to save space and time. And we’re currently floating in space. In our Lions. And my hair turned white when I revived Shiro.”

He paused to rub his face in exhaustion. 

“God,” he muttered. “Forgot to mention my name. I’m Lukas, and I’m apparently the Blue Paladin now, even though I have no fucking idea what the fuck I’m doing. Anyway, goodnight.”

The video ended. 

“Huh,” Jean grumbled, scrolling through the collection of videos. They weren’t named, only timestamped, so he was making a wild guess on which ones he should watch. 

He scrolled down and chose the most recent, this one time-stamped only about a year ago. 

He clicked on it. 

This one started off in cramped-looking crew’s quarters on a cruiser of some kind, and Pendergast looked older, more tired, more scarred. And exhausted and rather beat up, for that matter. There was blood dripping out of his nose and mouth and ears and from a cut on his jaw, and his left eye was badly bruised. 

He was breathing hard, and looked panicked. 

“Log day…” Pendergast flinched and rubbed his head. “Sorry, log day 1009, guys. Head hurts. Been fighting off alien demons for days now. Right now, we’re on the  _ IGF-Atlas.  _ We’re closing in on the signal from Mapleshade’s ship. I’ve been using my powers to transform energy, and I think the prophecy is starting to come true, you guys. I never thought… fuck, fuckfuckfuck. Shit.”

Pendergast paused, closing his eyes and taking several shaky breaths. 

Tears began to run down his face. 

“Jay, Hawkfrost,” he continued, his voice shaking. “Take care of each other, okay? I’m running out of time. In a few hours… in a few hours, it’s gonna be over for me. It’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay. Tell Red… tell her I’m sorry but I know what I have to do, and nobody else can, okay? Well, maybe Allura could but I can’t ask her to throw her life away like this. I love you all, and I’m so sorry. Not all of us can fight our destiny. So… goodbye. Godspeed.”

The video ended. 

It took Jean a moment to process it. 

If he’d heard correctly, Pendergast had walked willingly to his death, all to destroy Mapleshade. 

Just like Aidan had. 

“I always knew he had a messiah complex to end all messiah complexes.”

Jean yelped in surprise, accidentally falling out of his chair and hissing in pain at the sudden movement of his arm. 

He glanced up. 

Red was leaning in the doorway, a tight-lipped, melancholic grin on her face. 

“Can you knock?” Jean hissed, picking himself up off the floor. “I believe that’s common courtesy around here.”

“Not here, actually,” Red remarked, effortlessly grabbing a container of bacta goo off a shelf Jean was too short to reach. “We’re passing by the Ghria system. The alien inhabitants consider knocking rude.”

Jean scowled at her.

The similarities between her and Phoebe were almost too painful. 

“Chill,” Red said. “I just came to put some bacta on my injuries. They were bugging me. I didn’t know you stole my friend’s stuff until I saw you watching that video. Also, stay out of my shit.”

She sat, rolled up her pantleg, opened the container, and started smearing the synthetic healing gel over the nasty line of sutures in her shin. 

Jean found himself staring at the container.

Finally he gave in and rolled his chair over and rolled up his sleeves and his pantlegs, dipping his fingers in the bacta and smearing it on his wounds. 

He sighed in relief as the pain in his flesh arm faded to a dull ache. 

“Your reality have a Lukas, too?”

Jean froze. 

He hadn’t been expecting Red to try and make conversation, but then again, she seemed trustworthy. 

“Had,” he muttered. 

Red arched an eyebrow. 

“He’s dead,” Jean sighed, wincing at the painful memories. “I killed Luis while I was… not myself.”

Red flinched. 

“Same thing happened to the Aiden I knew,” she murmured. “Mapleshade made me go crazy. And Aiden, well, he was my last victim before L—Pendergast managed to bring me back.”

Silence. 

“You get locked up in solitary confinement, too?” Jean asked. 

Red frowned and nodded. 

More silence, except for the humming of the ship in the background. 

“What did you see?” Red finally asked, screwing the lid back on the bacta. “The weird dream thing. When you passed out in the casino office. I get the feeling you weren’t actually unconscious.”

Jean faltered. 

Well, shit. 

He’d literally made a deal with the devil, and he had no way of predicting how Red was going to take that. 

“What do you  _ want  _ to hear?” He said sarcastically. 

Red snorted. “Just tell me, idiot.”

Jean bit his lip. 

“Well,” he said, desperately trying to keep his tone light. “Lukas didn’t have a dream. Someone planted a connection in his mind so that they could talk to me.”

Red’s expression darkened. 

“Who was it? Don’t lie to me.”

Jean gulped. 

“Hear me out,” he said hurriedly. “It was Tigerstar. Now before you—”

_ “WHAT?” _

Red slammed her fist on the table, her eyes flashing with alarm. “Why the hell would you talk to  _ him?” _

Jean winced.

Yeah, she wasn’t waiting for him to explain. Of course she wasn’t. Tigerstar was one of the base reasons for their collective trauma, and she definitely wasn’t going to take kindly to the deal Jean had made.

He was regretting it himself.

“Just listen,” he hissed. “He’s been kicked out into the darkest corners of the Place of No Stars. Mapleshade has almost the entirety of the Dark Forest under her thumb, but she hasn’t managed to kill him permanently yet. He wants to help us.”

“What’s the catch?” Red snapped, gripping the container of bacta so hard that cracks were running through the plastic.

“We have to find the Red Nexus,” Jean grumbled, “and raise him.”

The bacta container broke into pieces.

“Absolutely the  _ fuck _ not,” Red snarled, rage and fear making her voice shaky and rough. “We can’t trust him. Have you  _ seen _ what he’s—”

“We need to fight fire with fire here!” Jean snapped, clenching his fists in anger. “Tigerstar can help me fix my doppelgänger problem and save Andrew, and I lost the person I love twice already and I can’t make this mistake, Red! Not again”

Red fell silent.

“Would  _ you _ do anything, and I mean _ anything _ for the people you love?” Jean spat, a terrible guilty feeling welling up in his chest as he realized how big of a mistake his years of self-imposed isolation had been. “I picked the coward’s way out after my war ended. I left and abandoned the few people I still cared about to live alone in my own misery because I thought I could forget it. You stayed and you fought for them even though it undoubtedly caused you pain to be surrounded by the memories, didn’t it? You stayed for the people you had left, but you’re gonna turn around and ignore them when it really counts, you coward?”

Red stood up quickly, her voice low and dangerous, her scarred face twisted into a furious, almost deranged snarl. 

“Don’t. Call. Me. A fucking. Coward.”

Jean managed not to flinch, instead meeting her stare with an equally ferocious one of his own. 

“You think I didn’t  _ try  _ to run away?” Red spat, her voice wobbling. “I tried, Jean. I tried. I isolated myself from everyone. I ended up a fucking addict because all the people I killed won’t fucking leave me alone! Then Luke finally found me, high off my ass and about to fucking kill myself, because he’d apparently sensed something was wrong and come to help. And I lied! I said I was getting better but I’m hiding it from him! And now you’re trying to bring back the  _ reason _ I‘m so lost? No! Fucking no! I can’t lose it again! I can’t!”

Well, if her goal had been to shock Jean into silence, it had worked.

“Red,” he began, trying to keep his temper, “You, of all people, should know that sometimes, even though we really don’t like it, we have to take risks. We have to make sacrifices.”

“But sometimes they’re not worth it!” Red retorted. “You’re staying on the ship when we get to Mustafar.”

She whipped around and stormed out. 

Jean growled in frustration under his breath and went back to the computer.

Maybe Pendergast had answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my girl Red is traumatized


	26. Hanging Out With An Actual Ex-Demon

When Andrew woke, Jean was gone. 

Briefly panicked, he sat up quickly, but then remembered Jean had mentioned needing to get his arm repaired. 

He grumbled in irritation and started to get up, reaching for his pants. 

Then he saw Luke, sitting curled up on the desk in the corner, nonchalantly watching as he stirred his coffee. 

Andrew yelped in alarm and reflexively fumbled for his hunting knife. 

Sadly, said knife was on the nightstand. 

Luke smirked and raised an eyebrow as he recovered from the shock and started getting dressed, scowling. 

“Y’know,” Luke remarked, pausing to sip his coffee, “I considered calling you to wake you up, but then I thought to myself, hey, where’s the fun in that?”

“How did you even get in here?” Andrew grumbled, carefully pulling the protective medical sleeve over his healing shoulder joint. “I locked the door last night, and I’m pretty sure Jean locked it behind him when he left this morning.”

Luke just chuckled. 

Wow, _ he _ seemed to be in a better mood than usual today. 

“Let’s just say I’m good at getting into places,” Luke remarked. “Not even Red has figured out how to lock me out of her room. It pisses her off, which really makes my morning.”

An awkward pause followed. 

Andrew shuddered. If Luke could figure out to jimmy a lock on almost anything, he wasn’t liking the idea of trying to outsmart him. 

“So why are you here?” He demanded, bracing himself for the worst. “Did something happen?”

Luke just laughed. 

“No,” he said. “Swimming lessons.”

And that was how Andrew found himself standing in a large brick building off of the main headquarters, feeling awkward and exposed in nothing but uncomfortably small shorts made of stretchy smooth fabric and a watertight medical band around his shoulder joint, on the edge of a pool of water in an enormous tile and concrete basin in the floor. 

He’d never seen this much water that  _ wasn’t  _ acidic and deadly in his life, if you didn’t count crash-landing the airship on Archidae, and even then he’d ended up passing out halfway through the escape, so he hadn’t been able to appreciate it. 

Off to his left, Gill (who had a plastic cast on his broken arm) was talking animatedly with Paige, May, and Jacob, all three of them wearing their own  _ swimsuits,  _ as Jacob called them. 

Andrew couldn’t see how they were called  _ suits. _ It was a pair of shorts, and a tank top, in the girls’ case. 

“Hey, are you doing okay?”

Andrew jumped. 

It was Lee, resting a hand on his shoulder, a worried look on his face. 

“You seem… on edge,” he said, fidgeting. “Are you uncomfortable? I mean, without a shirt? I can—“

“I’m fine,” Andrew muttered. 

Great, Lee cared about his dislike of being shirtless in front of others. Now he felt pitied and put on the spot. 

Lee bit his lip. “Hey, I know Jean didn’t show up, but it’s okay. You trust everyone here, right? Yeah? If you feel too uncomfortable without a shirt, just tell me, and I’ll go get you one.”

“Thanks,” Andrew said awkwardly. 

Then Hawkfrost, wearing a garish button down with brightly colored flowers on it and a whistle around his neck walked out, grinning. 

“So,” he said. “You lot don’t know how to swim, do you?”

An awkward chorus of “no”s.

Then Hawkfrost looked Andrew directly in the eyes, grinning darkly. 

“Let’s start off with you,” he said. “Go get in the pool, hold onto the edge with one hand and keep your head above water somehow. I don’t care how.”

_ Oh, shit.  _

Andrew froze. 

Hawkfrost was obviously getting his revenge for the flashlight incident. 

Lee made a face. “Come on, man, he’s still healing from his arm surgery. Don’t pick on—“

“You want to go then, Blond Guy?”

Andrew cringed. 

Lee nodded fiercely.

They all watched as Lee awkwardly sat on the edge of the pool. 

Then he dropped into the water. 

There was a chorus of startled gasps as Lee’s head went under, but then he was floundering to the surface, fear in his eyes as he clung bodily to the edge. 

He made a terrified squeaking sound, attempting to climb out. 

And Hawkfrost was just watching.

“What’re you doing?” May snapped, rushing to the edge to grab one of Lee’s hands and pull him out of the water with Gill’s help. “Help him!”

Hawkfrost scoffed. “Even a ThunderClan kit could swim better than that. You have to learn, eventually.”

“Would you chill?” Andrew snapped.

Hawkfrost arched an eyebrow.

Andrew took a deep breath and sat on the edge of the pool, wincing when he put his feet in the water, half-expecting agony.

But there was no pain.

He mentally reminded himself that this water wasn’t toxic and corrosive. 

That didn’t stop the feeling of water lapping against his shins and his feet totally submerged from being  _ really _ weird, though.

_ Andrew Mercer, _ he thought to himself,  _ you are certifiably insane. _

And he slid into the water.

His first impression was a startling chilly jolt, and then he yelped as his head went under and accidentally got a mouthful.

God, it tasted like chemicals.

Andrew grabbed onto the edge of the pool like Lee (who was now shivering and scowling at Hawkfrost, his hair soaked) had, trying to hold down the panic as he waved his feet below the surface, trying to find purchase on something.

Then it clicked.

He kept kicking, and realized that the harder he kicked, the easier he could stay on the wall.

He decided to try something.

Painfully aware of the six sets of eyes on him, Andrew pushed away from the wall, kicking his legs as hard as he could, instinctively moving his arms to steady himself.

He looked up.

Hawkfrost was staring at him in surprise.

“You’re treading water,” the man remarked. “And almost perfectly. Very good. For a beginner, I mean.”

Jacob laughed. “Lee, watch this!”

Then, before anyone could stop him, he launched himself into the water.

Andrew yelped, floundering away.

He wasn’t fast enough.

A wave of water hit him in the face, muffling the startled shouts from everyone else.

“Don’t freak out, I already know how to swim, you guys!” Jacob exclaimed cheerfully, his head bobbing above the surface  _ very _ far from the edge. “Come on, it’s fun! You get the hang of the basics fast.”

Gill shrugged, grinning. “C’mon, May, we can’t let him win every time!”

May started to protest, and Andrew burst out laughing when Gill shoved her in the water, then lost his balance and fell in after her, screaming about how his depth perception had gone to shit since he’d lost his eye in that enderman attack.

Yeah,  _ that _ enderman attack; the one where the thing had flipped their car and Jean had stabbed it through the stomach and Gill had gotten windshield glass all up in him. 

Andrew suddenly paused.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d  _ genuinely _ laughed.

Just the thought made him feel very awkward and tense. Shit, now he was thinking about his past again.

He grabbed onto the wall, where Lee was easing back into the water.

“Think fast!” Paige yelled, lunged forwards and tackled Lee from behind, sending the two of them sailed past Andrew and into the water, screaming.

Hawkfrost, who was perched on the edge of the pool, looked very proud of himself, but also… sad.

Andrew heaved a sigh.

Now he felt bad about teasing him with the flashlight earlier.

He pulled himself out of the water and sat down next to Hawkfrost, grumbling to himself about his own irritating sense of compassion.

“I’m sorry for fucking with you,” he said.

Hawkfrost blinked. “Oh, no problem. I was just thinking about how fun it is to watch you guys.”

Andrew frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Hawkfrost sighed. “This is probably the closest to mentoring I’ll ever get, you know.”

“What’s that?”

“Where I come from, kits—ah, children, are mentored how to fight and hunt at ten human years old,” Hawkfrost said softly, “Until they are about fifteen human years old. It’s been my dream to be a… ah, a teacher since I was young, but after my disastrous past life and my father’s manipulation turning me into something horrible practically from my birth, even though I’ve made amends with my siblings I doubt I’ll be trusted. Mothers fear me because of what terrible things I’ve done, and children as well because of all the stories that have been told about my past life. I doubt I’ll ever be trusted to mentor a child or even just become a teacher here at all.”

“Oh,” Andrew said hesitantly. 

He had no idea how to comfort Hawkfrost, because to be honest, Andrew had never liked kids. 

_ Jacob,  _ on the other hand, absolutely loved little kids and was practically a magnet for children of about four to ten years old, but that was beside the point. 

“So…” Hawkfrost began. “Is there, per chance, a story behind those tattoos?”

Andrew tensed. 

Great, just great. 

He’d had a feeling people would ask about them eventually. The tattoos were probably his least favorite part of the damage done to his body, given that they were painfully visible on his pale skin and there was no way to hide them if he wasn’t wearing a shirt. 

And they were big, too. The logo in the on his chest especially, and that damn serial number below it that branded him as someone’s  _ property. _

He hated them. 

Jean, Jacob, and Lee were the only people he knew who didn’t flinch when they saw them. 

But there was no way to remove them, so Andrew was forced to live with it.

“I’m the way I am now because I fucked up as a kid and I paid for it,” Andrew grumbled, pulling his arms close to his chest, trying to hide the black marks from view. “There’s no story behind them. Not one I want to tell you.”

Hawkfrost hummed thoughtfully. “You’re a strange, secretive man, you know.”

“What about you?” Andrew retorted anxiously, wincing at the venom in his voice that had made a habit of popping up whenever someone targeted his insecurities. “What’s with the marks on your face, huh?”

Hawkfrost visibly deflated. 

There was a tense pause. 

Andrew took note of how Hawkfrost’s posture changed to something withdrawn and sad, and he reached up to touch the blue markings below the outer corners of his eyes that looked like malformed crescents. 

“I lost someone,” Hawkfrost murmured. 

Andrew was about to reply when the communicator in Hawkfrost’s pocket buzzed loudly. 

He fished it out. 

There was a single message on the screen, bearing three words:

_ SOMEONE’S BEEN KILLED _


	27. Cover Blown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So part 3 might take a while to go up because of some personal stuff but it’s in the works so don’t worry

When they made it back to the Order headquarters, all the doors were locked. 

Hawkfrost, who looked incredibly agitated, pulled out his communicator to call someone. 

Andrew was trying not to panic. 

Jean had been here. Someone had been killed. 

_ Please let him be okay  _

“It’s gonna be okay,” Lee muttered, hugging Jacob, even though he looked just as afraid as the others. “It’s gonna be okay.”

After what felt like hours, Luke opened the door, looking exhausted. 

“Get inside,” he said. “We can solve this one. The bad news is that it was somebody on our side.”

And so they headed in. 

Andrew ran ahead and skidded to a halt into the lounge ahead of everyone else, where Jean was sitting. 

“Oh, thank god,” he groaned. 

As soon as their eyes met, Jean’s face lit up with relief and excitement. 

“Andrew!”

Andrew let out a sigh of relief as Jean rushed up to him and flung his arms around him in a hug. 

“I heard the news,” he mumbled frantically. “I assumed the worst, I didn’t know who got killed. I was so afraid it was you—“

“I’m okay,” Jean said, gently kissing his chin. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”

He sounded tense and scared. 

Then Andrew saw the dried blood on Jean’s hands, and he froze, a million different options and probabilities flying around in his brain. 

“What the hell?” He blurted. 

Jean didn’t  _ look _ hurt, so he was sure that blood wasn’t his own. 

Jean winced. 

“I found the victim. He was still alive, and I tried as hard as I could to stop the bleeding. I… I was too late.”

“Who was it?” Andrew asked nervously. 

Jean winced. “One of the ex-Dark Forest warriors who defected and chose to have a new life. Sparrowfeather. The poor kid was delivering mail and somebody snuck up and slit his throat. We’re trying to figure out who it was.”

“How old is he?” Andrew asked.

He had a feeling he was going to hate the answer. 

“Seventeen,” Jean said. 

_ Seventeen.  _

Two years younger than Jacob, which was a terrifying thought. 

Then again, Andrew had seen kids even younger than that get slaughtered, so he didn’t know why this death made him shudder.

Maybe it was because one of his friends could’ve easily been the victim. 

Just then, a tall man, maybe in his early thirties, with snow-white hair and a large scar across his nose walked in, a clipboard under his arm. 

“Hey,” he said. “Sit back down.”

Jean rolled his eyes and headed back to the couch. Andrew started to ask why, but just then Luke came in, followed by Lee, Hawkfrost, and Jacob. 

“I sent the guy with the broken arm to the infirmary,” Luke said to the white-haired man, visibly relaxing when their eyes met. “The redhead and his girlfriend went with him. Blond Guy and the skinny kid wanted to come and I couldn’t get them to back down.”

“We need to know what’s going on!” Lee snapped, scowling. 

Andrew cringed. 

Lee was  _ notoriously  _ compassionate. 

“Yeah, and I’m not leaving him,” Jacob proclaimed stiffly. 

The white-haired man made a face. 

“Has Jay showed up?”

Luke shook his head. 

White Hair sighed. “Just… explain to everyone what’s going on. I still need to find the camera tapes.”

Luke cleared his throat. 

He looked on edge, frustrated. 

“All of you sit down,” he huffed. “The suspects are waiting for questioning, and I need some help here. Hawkfrost, be honest, were you  _ really  _ at the pool?”

Hawkfrost wrinkled his nose in disgust, growling. “I don’t do that anymore!”

“Uhm,” Andrew broke in, “He was.”

Luke heaved a relieved sigh. “Good, I was worried for a minute. Now everyone, I want you to be  _ extremely  _ careful if you’re going around alone here. We locked down the whole building, so nobody’s getting in or out. The murderer is definitely still here, and if they aren’t with the other suspects…”

Andrew felt a chill as he realized what Luke’s words meant. 

The killer could be anywhere. 

———

Something was wrong. 

Andrew had no idea what it was, but something about Jean was just… wrong. 

What had Jacob called it… 

Right, the  _ Mandela effect.  _

It was like what he remembered Jean being like wasn’t quite right. 

Currently, Jean was talking to Luke, who was trying to get more information on the murder. He looked completely at ease, and was even  _ smiling,  _ not tense and defensive like normal.   
  
  


Besides, he’d apparently just watched someone die in front of him. How the hell wasn’t Jean clamming up?

There were little differences in his posture and his body language as well, and how he kept mixing Spanish in with his English was just plain bizarre. 

Worst of all, nobody else seemed to be noticing it. 

Andrew vividly remembered Jean’s snappishness and refusal to cooperate when he’d first woken up in Ground Town, how he’d snuck out to a bar and almost gotten himself either kidnapped or killed, depending on the motives of the thugs attacking him when Andrew had finally found him. 

He decided to go talk to Lee. 

Lee was one of his oldest childhood friends, so Andrew figured that he could trust him. 

Currently, Lee and Jacob were sitting with the suspects. It looked like Jacob was trying to console an older man who must’ve been a janitor (and was crying fearfully). 

Lee was sitting against the wall, looking a bit cagey. 

“Hey,” Andrew sighed, leaning against the wall next to him. “Can we talk?”

Lee nodded, rubbing his face. “Yeah. I’m so tired. I mean, this place is just so different than home but it seems so much safer but it’s actually a million times more dangerous—shit, I’m rambling again. What do you wanna talk to me about?”

“In private,” Andrew grumbled, tugging his arm toward the bathroom. 

Once they were situated in a stall, Andrew cleared his throat and finally spoke. 

“Have you noticed anything weird?” He asked nervously, hoping and praying to God (if He even still existed) that he wasn’t going crazy. “About Jean?”

Lee balked. 

“Well,” he said slowly. “Since he came back from trying to get a lightsaber he’s been a lot more agreeable. Maybe he’s just not so tense here.”

“That’s the problem!” Andrew hissed. “It’s not normal! He’s acting too different for this to just be a mood change!”

Lee frowned. “He  _ seems _ fine.”

Andrew growled in frustration. 

Damn it, he was really grasping at straws here. Jean was acting weird enough that Andrew, __ a living, breathing war machine, could sense something was wrong, but the normal people couldn’t!

“I’m telling you!” He snapped. “Something weird’s going on!”

Lee winced. 

“Andrew, when did you last eat—“

“Lee,” Andrew growled, trying to hold back his rising panic. “I’m not. Fucking. Crazy.” 

If something really  _ was  _ wrong with Jean, Jean could get hurt. 

His  _ friends _ could get hurt. 

Andrew had to figure out what was going on, even if he  _ was  _ losing his mind. 

“Andrew,” Lee said quietly, an apologetic look on his face. “I’m thinking you should go lay down. Jean’s fine, okay?”

“When was the last time you saw him listen to music?” Andrew challenged, his voice shaking with fright. “He never spoke Spanish around us back home, and he was  _ never  _ this friendly with people, okay? Something happened back there when his doppelgänger kidnapped him, and…”

He suddenly trailed off. 

Oh god. 

Could Jean… not really be Jean?

“Andrew,” Lee said, his expression tense and worried. “Are you sure this isn’t just paranoia talking? I get it, you’re adjusting from having to look over your shoulder all the time and you’re not used to getting a break, and—”

_ Oh no oh no oh no.  _

“I gotta talk to Luke,” he blurted, elbowing his way out of the stall. 

_ Shit _

_ Shit shit shit _ _ shit shit _

How the hell had that possibility slipped his mind?

PAMA had made him a paranoid overthinker who second-guessed every move he made, and yet he’d somehow missed the terrifying possibility that the doppelgänger who’d attacked him on Ilum had taken Jean’s place. 

He burst into the interrogation room, Lee behind him, already apologizing. 

“Luke!” Andrew yelped. 

Luke spun around in his chair, an agitated look on his face. 

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Andrew hissed, pointing at Jean—no, the person he  _ thought  _ was Jean. It all made sense: the uncharacteristically bold flirting, the change of mood, how his eyes were almost too pale, the minuscule differences in body language, even the blood on his hands and claiming to have tried to save the victim of the muder. 

The kid was an ex-Dark Forest warrior, and according to an offhand comment from Red, they could identify dark magic if they spent enough time around it. 

Andrew glared at the doppelgänger, who abruptly looked alarmed. 

“It’s you,” Andrew snarled, forcing back his terror and betrayal. “You killed the kid, and you aren’t Jean.”

Shadowfire narrowed his eyes. 

“What the fuck? I tried to _save_ the kid, asshole! Why are you accusing me; I thought we were—“

Alarm flashed in Luke’s eyes. 

“What did you say?”

“I said,” Andrew spat, yanking his gun out of its holster and ignoring Lee’s attempt to stop him, “that’s not Jean. I know him, and whatever the fuck you are, _you_ _are not him.”_

Shadowfire didn’t flinch at the sight of his gun. He just looked betrayed and horrified and angry. 

“I thought I could  _ trust  _ you, Andrew. And now you’re  _ framing  _ me.”

Andrew gritted his teeth. 

_ It isn’t real it isn’t real it isn’t real _

“If you’re really Jean,” he said, trying to keep his hands from shaking. “Our first kiss. I know you remember, because we had a fight the morning after. Where and how?”

Shadowfire froze. 

“Uh,” he said, tensing. “We were both really drunk, come on. I don’t remember much of that night, and your memory’s probably hazy too, right? I only remember that we kissed, and that’s it.”

Andrew winced. 

He couldn’t clearly dispute that. 

“Okay,” he grumbled, frantically searching for something only Jean would know about him. “The day after the car wreck and the enderman attack. We went to Novac. There was this little shop selling pre-war memorabilia. What did you buy for me?”

Shadowfire went silent, his eyes darting frantically around. 

“Uhm. Okay, I… uh…”

Then Luke, who’d shut his eyes, holding a hand over Shadowfire’s metal arm, gasped and topped backwards into his chair, wheezing. 

He must’ve tried reading his emotions while he wasn’t paying attention.

“You,” he said, his voice shaking as he drew his lightsabers, “Are under arrest for murder and high treason. Put your hands behind your head. And thanks, by the way, for giving this back.”

And then Shadowfire stood. 

And started to  _ laugh.  _

“Oh, you caught on faster than I anticipated,” he said cheerfully. “I was hoping for a few days, at least, but I guess I underestimated how close you two were, Andrew. Anyway, I suggest you let me out of here peacefully or I’m gonna kick all three of your asses.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that,  _ Sunshine,”  _ Andrew growled, keeping his pistol aimed at Shadowfire’s head. 

Two could play this game. 

Shadowfire clicked his tongue in disappointment, smirking cruelly. 

“Have it your way, love.”

Then he made a wild dash for the door, and all hell broke loose. 

Thankfully, Lee was still in the doorway, so he was able to trip Shadowfire before he could make it into the hall. 

Then Luke slashed one of his lightsabers down Shadowfire’s back. 

Shadowfire screamed. 

Andrew had the perfect opportunity for a lethal shot to the head, and took aim, his finger tightening on the trigger. 

But he hesitated. 

Maybe it was because the doppelgänger was so similar to Jean that even his  _ screams  _ sounded the same. 

But somehow, Andrew couldn’t bring himself to take the shot. 

That was a mistake. 

Shadowfire was back on his feet, snarling in pain, and then Lee was firing his gun but Shadowfire was dodging too fast for his reflexes to keep up—

The white-haired guy Luke had called Shiro suddenly rounded the corner with Jacob beside him. 

Both of them froze. 

“You!” Shadowfire screeched in excitement. “Help me! They’re trying to kill me!”

Jacob dove to the floor as another bullet shot down the hall. 

Shiro ducked to the side and stuck out his leg, which Shadowfire collided with and went flailing to the floor. 

Shadowfire snarled and punched him hard in the nose with his metal fist. 

Shiro crumpled. 

Something vicious sparked in Luke’s eyes, and before Andrew could do anything he’d decked Shadowfire in the eye and sent him sprawling. 

“Lay off my husband,” Luke snarled, rage simmering in his eyes. 

_ Husband? _

Andrew was thrown for a moment. 

That gave Shadowfire the perfect opening to scramble for the emergency exit at the end of the hall, but then Lee—oh, bless that man’s apparent lack of common sense and self-preservation instincts—launched himself after him and fired his last bullet. 

Andrew had been counting. 

But then, to his dismay, the bullet missed Shadowfire’s thigh and ricocheted off his elbow instead, the momentum knocking him into the wall. 

And hit Luke in the chest. 

Luke stumbled over his own feet and hit the floor, his eyes wide with shock as he choked and coughed up blood. 

Oh fuck. 

Oh no. 

Shadowfire darted towards the exit. 

“Go!” Shiro yelled, rushing to Luke’s side. “Catch Jean! He’ll be okay!”

Andrew didn’t know how anyone could survive a bullet in the lung, but then again, he’d seen Jacob get ripped apart by an enderman and somehow come out alive. Hell, his suspension of disbelief had been stretched past its limit so many times in the past few months it was slowly becoming nonexistent.

So he gritted his teeth and ran. 

And he turned the corner, and there was Paige, furiously trying to wrench her gun out of Shadowfire’s grip, and a battered Lee was behind him, trying to get a good hit at his kidneys or spine. 

“We came to see what was going— _ GAH!  _ What was going on!” She hissed, and then attempted to knee Shadowfire in the gut. 

“Eat lead, shitlips!” May yelled, fired her gun, and Shadowfire fell back, screaming, clutching a brand-new bullet wound in his flesh arm. 

“Help!” Shadowfire snarled. “Andrew, I’m your fucking  _ boyfriend!  _ Help me!”

_ “You’re not Jean!” _ Andrew shouted through gritted teeth, his stomach feeling sick as he took aim again.

But then Shadowfire grabbed the barrel of his gun and yanked it away. 

Andrew lost his grip on it. 

And now Shadowfire was armed. 

But before anything, Lee lunged back into the fray, a pocket knife in his hands, and he caught Shadowfire in the jaw. 

The next few events seemed to happen in slow motion. 

Shadowfire tried to shoot Lee. 

Lee dodged. 

Lee lashed out with the pocket knife. 

Shadowfire caught Lee's hand, wrenched it around, and  _ ripped the blade through Lee’s throat. _

Blood sprayed.

There was a brief calm as the events of the past few seconds sunk in, but after about a second and a half, chaos erupted once more as Shadowfire made a wild dash for the emergency exit, and Paige and may lunged after him.

Andrew completely forgot about Shadowfire.

He panicked, diving for Lee as he crumpled to the floor, his eyes wide with horror, blood gushing from his throat in torrents.

There was a loud crash of metal on metal and the screech of an alarm as the emergency exit flew open, and then the fighting stopped.

No sound except for Lee gurgling and choking on his own blood.

“No,” Andrew choked out, clamping his hand over the lethal gash, gasping for breath as he tried to staunch the flow of blood even though he knew it was useless; the cut was a clean slice right across his jugular, too big and deep to ever heal.

God, Lee was so pale already.

He made a quiet squeaking sound, his eyes wide with shock.

“Oh my god,” May whimpered, clutching a hand over her mouth in horror. “Oh my god. Paige, go get help.”

It took a few seconds for the command to sink in.

“Go get help!” Andrew snarled.

Paige, fury in her eyes, whipped around and ran down the hall.

“Lee, please hang on,” May mumbled, tearing off her shirtsleeve and wadding it up, pressing the bundle of fabric against the wound.

Andrew felt something in his chest breaking as Lee’s harsh gasps started to weaken.

“You bastard!” He snapped, tears slipping down his cheeks. “Don’t you fucking die! Hold on, I swear to fucking god,  _ please _ hold on!”

Lee met his eyes, his gaze full of pain and terror and regret.

“A—An… And—”

He was cut off by a fit of choking coughs.

_ No.  _

_ No no no no no. _

“I—I’m… s—sor—ry…” 

_ NO! _

In a fit of desperation, Andrew called on that powerful benign force he’d been summoning since their fateful ride to Novac, remembering how he’d used it to heal Jean back in the ice caves.

Yeah, he’d lied to Jean.

He’d said he’d melted the ice. He’d actually healed him, which, according to Luke, was incredibly taxing and could kill him if he wasn’t careful.

Jean had told him not to use his powers unless he had to.

But this qualified as a dire circumstance.

He pressed his hands to the sides of Andrew’s head, sucking in a shaky breath, concentrating on the humming power he felt whenever he summoned the Blue Lion to his aid.

The familiar chill of the powerful energy swelled in his chest.

And he directed it into Lee’s body, gritting his teeth against the piercing agony as the pain was transferred, dimly aware of the blue glow brightening around them.

He couldn’t lose Lee

Lee was his best friend.

Lee was  _ Jacob’s  _ best friend.

Andrew could feel torn arteries being mended under his touch, lost blood replenished and mangled skin repaired.

And then it was done.

He fell backwards onto his ass, wheezing as the world spun nauseatingly.

Something was dripping down his neck.

Andrew reached up to wipe it away.

It was blood, oozing out his ears.

And it was coming out his nose, too, judging by the metallic taste when he licked his lips.

Andrew slumped to the floor.

He was dimly aware of May shaking his shoulder and yelling, trying to rouse him as he slipped away into unconsciousness.


	28. A Warning

Leo slept about an hour before being roused by an unearthly scream.

He jolted awake, instinctively going for the switchblade he always slept with, because you could never be too careful.

Then he saw the smoke coming off Jesse’s bunk.

_ Oh, shit. _

The cooling spell must’ve worn off, and judging from how Jesse’s body was glowing like a spotlight and how much he was thrashing and screaming, he was having a night terror.

“Everybody up!” Leo yelled, cursing angrily.

Cal was already out of his bunk, terror in his eyes. “What the  _ kark  _ is happening to him!”

“This is normal!” Leo yelped in a panic.

Well, this was a problem. The other times Jesse had had this happen, he’d been able to jump back and just let him melt through a sheet of metal and hit his head on something to wake him up.

Now… 

“Hang on!” Quentin yelped, yanking his bagpipes out.

Leo groaned in dismay.

_ Good god, not the bagpipes, damn it! _

He pushed over to the bunk and tried to shake Jesse awake, moving as fast as he could.

Agony flooded up his arm, and before anyone could react, the world tilted alarmingly and Leo was sucked into darkness.

———

_ “Is he stable?” _

_ Leo yelped and spun around. _

_ Great. _

_ He’d had problems with this aspect of his precognitive abilities before. _

_ Touching extremely powerful magical objects or beings under a lot of stress tended to jerk him into dream sequences. During said sequences, he often glimpsed near-future and recent past events. Then he usually ended up waking hours later, exhausted from his abilites being forced into overdrive with only a foggy recollection of the visions themselves. _

_ Apparently, trying to wake Jesse up with a nudge had been enough to draw him into one. _

_ On his left, there was a hospital bed. _

_ There was a dark-haired man with a metal arm lying on it, hooked up to an IV and a life support module, dried blood crusted around his nose, mouth, and ears. He seemed to be comatose, judging by how a redheaded woman who looked disturbingly like Petra (minus the metal arm) paced agitatedly at the foot of the bed. _

_ “I asked you,” she hissed. “Is Andrew stable or not?” _

_ Leo glanced over. _

_ It was none other than  _ Luke _ who she was talking to. _

_ Leo growled in frustration. Losing that bastard had been one hell of a fuck-up for Mapleshade to pin on him, even though she’d purposefully let the man slip away. _

_ Something about a plan of hers. _

_ “Well, he’s in a coma,” Luke muttered wearily, his eyes tired and sunken as he scrolled through a computer. There was a sizable mass of bandages over the left side of his chest, and there was a crutch leaning against the table. “Time’ll tell, but what he did… well, let’s just say he probably won’t ever quite be the same.” _

_ “Is he gonna live or not?” The Petra lookalike snapped. _

_ Luke winced. “He tapped into the Blue Lion’s power to heal Lee, but there was something else helping him. He’d already be dead if… if whatever it was hadn’t provided him with the extra strength. But his survival rate? Odds he’ll wake up are about 40% and falling the longer he’s asleep, Paige. Don’t get your hopes up.” _

_ The redheaded woman, Paige, balled her fists in frustration. _

_ “Damn it!” She spat miserably. _

_ Leo had a sinking feeling that these people were important, and that the man in the cot  _ had _ to wake up. _

_ But before he could wonder any more, the scene dissolved. _

_ He was standing now on a starship, in the common area. There was another man (who looked hauntingly similar to Jesse) sitting on the sofa, still battered from a recent fight, scowling at a half-built lightsaber in his hands and growling in frustration. _

_ “Work, damn it!” The man snarled. _

_ He shook the hilt, and something inside it rattled noisily. _

_ Suddenly, the man flinched, like he’d just been smacked between the eyes with the butt of a spear.  _

_ His eyes stretched wide with alarm. _

_ He slowly reached up and clutched his chest, beginning to hyperventilate, terror and anguish swelling in his gaze, and then he slipped off his cot and onto the floor. _

_ “Andrew,” he choked out. “No. No, god, please no.” _

_ Leo could only watch helplessly as the man let out a pained whimper and buried his face in his hands. _

_ Huh, his right arm was also made of metal. Leo hadn’t noticed in the dim light. _

_ How the hell had this many people lost an arm to this? First Petra, whom he’d (begrudgingly) worked with, who’d lost her arm due to a transversing mishap when she’d first met Arai, then the comatose dark-haired guy called Andrew, and now  _ this _ guy? _

_ Leo shuddered. _

_ God, he hoped  _ he _ wouldn’t lose an arm. _

_ Then the scene melted briefly into a lava river on a dim volcanic world.  _

_ Far below him in a small valley, two figures were facing off. One held a purple lightsaber in each hand, and the other was unarmed.  _

_ “Kill me,” the unarmed figure said. “Kill me and live with the memory. Then tell the stars you  _ won.”

_ Then the scene changed again, and Leo found himself in someone’s bedroom. _

_ For a moment, he thought he was back aboard the  _ Avenger,  _ but then he saw that the sleeping quarters he was in were a lot different than those aboard Mapleshade’s flagship. _

_ For one thing, these quarters had a window, which currently displayed a moonlit night over a large walled city—another, much more technologically-advanced version of Beacontown, it looked like—with a large, semi-transparent energy dome over it. Also, the room’s walls were decorated tastefully with dozens of photographs of people and places, and an elaborate flowchart had been erected on one wall, just below a gay pride flag attatched to the ceiling with sticky hands. _

_ Now this was… odd. _

_ Leo didn’t know this place at all. _

_ But in the double bed, next to the two desks set up, there was a white-haired man with a scar across his nose and an elaborate prosthetic arm lying fast asleep, and next to him, lounging in a t-shirt against the pillows…  _

_ Leo resisted the urge to scream. _

_ “Oh, so it’s you,” Luke grumbled, shooting him a dirty look. “I’m not coming back after you literally sucked out my life force, you know.” _

_ “What the fuck?” Leo blurted. _

_ He hadn’t purposefully tried to dream about  _ Luke,  _ of all the goddamn people in the world. When they’d first met, Mapleshade had given Leo instructions to gain Luke’s trust (something not easily won) and lure him into a trap. _

_ Well, it had worked. _

_ And then Luke had escaped. _

_ And now they were face-to-face again, and Leo would be lying if he said that when the guy was angry and at full strength, Luke was shit-your-pants scary. _

_ “I’m just as confused as you are,” Luke muttered irritably. “I kept getting this itch in my skull, like something was in my brain. Then I fall asleep, and you’re standing in my dreamscape. What the hell have you been up to?” _

_ “Oh, like I’m gonna tell you,” Leo snapped. _

_ He had faith in his mental shielding against most psychic opponents, but this was Luke fucking Skywalker sitting in front of him, regarding him distastefully with cold, piercing blue-grey eyes and twiddling his thumbs. _

_ Luke was one of the most powerful empaths in Jedi history. _

_ Then Luke’s eyes lit up, and Leo felt his hopes plummeting. _

_ “Mapleshade lost her trust in you, and you’re planning something to try and get it back.” _

_ “Back off,” Leo snapped. _

_ Luke just laughed icily, sitting forward on the bed, his face twisting into an almost feral grin.  _

_ “Remember, I’m not a Jedi,” he remarked. “I’m a Grey Jedi. Important distinction. I’m not afraid to explore aspects of the Force considered to be evil or whatever. Now, I suggest that whatever you’re doing, you better fucking stop. You have no idea what you’re messing with, and Mapleshade is gonna double-cross you inevitably. Get ready for it, Parker.” _

_ Leo flinched, resisting the urge to cower. _

_ “Can you stay out of this?” he hissed. “I’m trying to get my family back! Of all people, you should get why I’m working for her!” _

_ Luke’s eyes flashed with anger.  _

_ “You don’t understand!” He snarled. “You don’t know what she’s done in the past or what’s gonna happen if she succeeds, Leo! She’s going to kill you for what you can do!” _

_ Leo froze.  _

_ “That’s right,” Luke continued, and Leo saw sparks flickering across his hands, purple light glowing in his palms. “You’re a channeler. She’s gonna do to you exactly what she ordered you to do to me.” _

_ There was a brief pause.  _

_ Forcing down the terror at the realization Luke’s words had triggered, Leo stammered out, “You’re delusional.” _

_ Luke winced. “Suit yourself.” _

And then Leo woke up to Quentin stroking his hair. 

He yelped and sat bolt-upright in surprise, gasping for breath, and that was when he noticed the bandages plastered up and down his left arm. 

“Shit,” he groaned. 

“Good, you have awoken,” Merrin remarked, giving him a light smirk. 

“Are you okay?” Jesse fretted, and Leo noticed the cooling spell had been cast on him again. “I burned you. And then you passed out.”

“Yeah,” Cal said. “You touched his shoulder and you just crumpled.”

“No time to explain,” Leo grumbled, leaning heavily on Quentin as he struggles back to his feet. “I’m fine. But we need to get to Beacontown, get info, and get the hell out of here. I know where we need to go.”

Jesse brightened. 

“You do?”

Leo nodded. 

He couldn’t explain  _ how  _ he knew, but he wasn’t concerned about catching Petra anymore. 

He just had a gut feeling that they had to go to Mustafar, and soon.


	29. Somebody I Used To Know

Leo headed right for the beacon in the center of the city. 

Their strange group definitely drew some attention, especially how Jesse kept straying behind, gazing at the buildings in confusion, and waving excitedly at people who gasped and pointed. 

A heavily scarred human, a  _ glowing _ human with amnesia, a Nightsister, a half drow, and a Jedi Knight traveling together towards the center of the city at a noticeably brisk pace wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. 

When they stopped at the beacon, Leo saw just the people he’d hoped to meet. 

Austin and Opal. 

As soon as the two (who were poring over some books together) saw the little group, they froze in shock. 

“What in the…” Opal stammered. 

Then her eyes fell on Jesse. 

“Oh my god,” she murmured. “Axel, look! It’s Jesse! And Lukas! They're back!”

Oh, so this was the wrong reality again. 

Leo winced. 

Jesse, obviously struggling to remember them, waved awkwardly.

“Jesse!” Axel (the Austin lookalike) yelled excitedly. “You’re back! Oh my god, we were so worriedaaAAAAAAAH!”

Axel had tried to hug Jesse, but his green plaid flannel had caught fire on contact with Jesse’s skin.

He frantically yanked it off, leaving him in just his T-shirt.

There was an awkward beat of silence.

“Do I know you?” Jesse murmured softly, glancing nervously between the two of them. “Axel…Liv…I don’t recall…”

Axel and Liv both looked alarmed.

Leo heaved a sigh. 

“Listen,” he said tensely. “I’m not the Lukas you know. My name is Leo, and we need your help.”

———

Leo had had a nagging feeling ever since Luke had told him Mapleshade would use him for his powers.

For one thing, Skywalker was a powerful empath, and Leo had to admit that he did trust somebody who could literally read the motivations of someone’s actions with a touch.

And Luke had apparently fought Mapleshade before.

Now they were sitting in Liv’s laboratory (“Yeah, my real name is Olivia, but most people just call me Liv.”), amidst the clutter of unfinished projects and mounds of tools and drop cloths, where Jesse was hooked up to some sensors.

“Holy shit,” Liv muttered, swiping through her holographic display. “These energy readings are off the charts.” 

Leo nodded.

“I’ve seen him melt through tempered steel without flinching,” he said, watching Axel waving his hands in emphasis as he spoke to Jesse, obviously trying to jog his memory. “The magic he has is powerful and barely under his control. It’s kind of scary.”

Liv winced. “I just… I don’t get how this is possible. Scientifically, I mean.”

Leo sighed and gave her a brief summary of alternate realities and all that junk, until Liv was staring at him in shock.

“Wow,” she blurted.

Leo sighed. “Yeah, I know, it’s cool, but please don’t get on my ass about this. Your Petra, she needs to be found. So does your Lukas.”

“I know, but this is amazing!” Liv blurted out, holding up Cal’s lightsaber (which he’d begrudgingly let her borrow for a few minutes to study). “I, like,  _ just _ perfected my nanotech and my holograms! You guys are a fucking gold mine of tech I’ve never  _ dreamed  _ of! I’m on board to help.”

Leo stared at her in fascination. 

“Really?”

Liv nodded enthusiastically, setting Cal’s lightsaber back on the table.

Leo sighed.

That was a relief.

He decided to go talk to Quentin, because that usually reassured him.

Well, about sixty percent of the time so far. The other forty percent was usually concerning and slightly alarming. As it turned out, Quentin’s moral compass was less of a _compass_ and more of a _roulette wheel._

“So,” Quentin said, as soon as he approached. “Where are we headed next?”

Leo faltered in surprise, staring at Quentin’s outfit.

He’d changed from his ripped and torn clothes from Gygax into a bright pink plaid button down and a very nice pair of ripped jeans, and had traded his leather boots for lightweight combat boots. His dark indigo hair had also been brushed and washed, and combed back artfully across his forehead, and he was wearing new goggles that looked like a fancy pair of sunglasses.

“Liv gave me them,” he said proudly, noticing Leo staring. “They’re a lot lighter than my old ones, and they’re easier to wear.”

“You look great,” Leo blurted.

He resisted the urge to glance at Quentin’s ass.

“Oh, you like what you see?” Quentin teased, patting his cheek. “You sure do look like it.”

“Shut up,” Leo muttered.

Quentin laughed. “God, look at you Leo, you’re so cute when you’re all flustered. So, like I said, where to next?”

Leo sighed.

“Mustafar,” he grumbled. “We’re going there. I don’t know why, I just have this gut feeling.”

“Cool,” Quentin replied. “I’d follow you to the end of the universe with only mild complaining, you know. You need somebody to keep you out of trouble.”

_ Only mild complaining. _

Huh, Leo couldn’t remember ever having  _ that  _ kind of relationship. 

“Also,” Quentin said, pulling a small object out of his pocket, “I wanted to give this to you.”

Leo took it. 

It was a small device that looked like a lighter, but when he flicked it, the flame was bright blue. Engraved on the side was what looked like a dragon, and in the lid… 

“I told you not to keep that picture,” Leo grumbled, scowling at the small photo that was tucked in the lid. 

Quentin laughed. “You look adorable.”

It was a picture Quentin had taken of them shortly after the peryton attack with his Polaroid camera. In the picture, it was dusk, and Leo was scowling and looking rather disgruntled as Quentin leaned on his shoulder, grinning. 

Both of them looked beat-up. 

“That lighter is magic,” Quentin said. “It can light up anywhere, even underwater, and the fire burns for a long time. I feel like you’ll appreciate it.”

Leo felt himself blushing. 

“Thanks,” he replied, tucking the lighter and the photo into his pocket. 

“No need,” Quentin chuckled.

Suddenly there was a loud  _ ZAP  _ and some sparking noises, and Leo turned to see Jesse sitting on the floor, the metal frame of the medical cot he’d been sitting on melted in half, the remains of the cushions burning. Liv was holding the scorched remains of the cable that had connected the sensors she’d stuck on his arms and forehead, looking startled. 

“I forgot to mention I’m holding back,” Jesse said sheepishly. 

“Holding back?” Liv blurted. “Holy shit, you’re like a walking nuclear reactor, buddy! I have to run some tests—“

Axel awkwardly cleared his throat. 

“Liv, we’re supposed to be getting ready to go,” he said.

Liv didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, she darted over to her computer, muttering to herself, and started rapidly punching in numbers. 

Axel heaved a sigh. 

“You get to test that spacecraft prototype you’re working on.”

Liv brightened. 

“Right!” She clapped her hands together and slammed her computer shut. “Okay, everyone to the garage!”

Leo cringed. 

“Is she always like that?” Jesse said nervously, watching her go.

“Dunno,” Leo muttered, falling into step beside Axel. “They’re not my Axel and Liv; remember. They’re yours.”

He couldn’t help but feel bad for Jesse. 

“Oh, she is,” Axel remarked dryly. “She once caused a phantom infestation in the attic because she wanted to finish that project, remember? Petra fell down the stairs and broke her ankle!”

Jesse laughed weakly. “I wish I could.”

Axel’s brow creased with worry, but he didn’t say anything. 

———

Liv’s prototype seemed to be a large ship the size of a small freighter, a sleek silver chrome hull shaped like a bullet. 

Leo frowned. 

It didn’t look  _ too _ terrible. 

“Everybody on!” Liv yelled, grinning devilishly, pressing a button on the remote in her hand. 

The ship’s hatch opened. 

“Before she left, Petra gave me some hella cool blueprints,” Liv explained ecstatically, practically dragging Leo to the cockpit. “Blueprints to build an engine capable of traveling through wormholes, Leo! And for an effing spaceship! This is gonna be  _ so cool!” _

“Uhm,” Cal asked nervously, “Do you know if this thing even works?”

“No,” Axel grumbled, flopping down in one of the passenger seats. “Strap yourself in, buddy. If this thing explodes, which would  _ also  _ be hella cool, getting your guts sucked out by the G-forces wouldn’t be a fun way to go.”

Liv quickly flipped several switches and the engine roared to life. 

She grinned. 

Leo shuddered. 

“Ten credits she ends up going upside down on the first orbit,” Quentin murmured, nudging his arm. 

Leo scoffed. “You’re on.”

And so they joined the others in the passenger bay, and it turned out there was one too few seats, given that you couldn’t get within two feet of Jesse without feeling uncomfortably warm.

“Shit,” Jesse said nervously, glancing at the floor. “Should I sit on the—“

“Nah,” Quentin said, and got up. 

And before Leo could ask what he was doing, Quentin sat down  _ in his lap. _

Leo froze. 

He could feel several sets of eyes on him. 

“Your face is turning red,” Merrin remarked, tilting her head condescendingly. “Cal’s face does that whenever I give him a hug. I’m still fairly unfamiliar with human biology, but I read that that is a sign of embarrassment.”

Axel, who’d just taken a sip of his soda, choked on it.

Cal, meanwhile, flushed red, a disgruntled look crossing his face, and BD-1 beeped curiously. 

Suddenly Jesse sat forward in his seat, eyes wide, his whole body tensed like he was bracing himself for something, the seat cushions smoldering underneath him.

“Something’s wrong,” he mumbled, clawing at his head, “Something’s wrong wrong wrong wrong—”

The seat cushion burst into flame.

In a chorus of startled noises, everyone scrambled away from Jesse, who was blinking and looking around frantically.

“Jesse?” Leo asked cautiously, keeping a careful eye on the intensity of the white glow leaking through the cracks in Jesse’s arms and his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Jesse shook his head like he was trying to get water out of his ears. 

“I remember,” Jesse mumbled, “Something.”

Oh no.

What if he’d remembered… 

“Wrong!” Jesse yelped, and suddenly lunged out of his seat and bolted off the ship, clutching the sides of his head. “Go away! Go away!”

Axel jumped out of his seat.

Leo felt his heart drop into his stomach.

Fuck, this wasn’t good, and he didn’t need his precognition to warn him.

Leo followed Jesse off the ship, which was easy with the footprints melted into the concrete floor, and he skidded to a halt in the hangar.

Jesse had crumpled to the floor, holding the sides of his head.

He was twitching violently, whimpering frantically, and then suddenly he let out a loose scream, slamming a fist against the concrete.

Leo quickly ducked behind the bulkhead, his terror only growing as the blast of heat hit.

He peered back around.

“YOU TRICKED ME!”

Leo shrieked and dove for cover as a blast of white fire slammed into the wall.

“Something…you TRICKED…YOU!” Jesse snarled, stumbling erratically towards him. “YOU MADE ME! You made me KILL HER!”

Oh no.

This was  _ bad. _

Jesse had remembered something, his slowly deteriorating brain uncovering a damaged memory as it destroyed itself.

And Jesse looked bad.

He looked deranged, feral, like a frightened animal as he threw more fire, and Leo scrambled back in terror, nocking an arrow to his bow and taking aim at Jesse’s eye socket.

And he felt terrible.

He’d never thought about Jesse eventually realizing the truth, but now he realized… 

Leo realized he’d made a friend.

He faltered.

He couldn’t kill Jesse.

He couldn’t turn Jesse in.

He…he just… 

Couldn’t.

And that was what broke him.

Jesse made an agonized wailing noise and tripped over his own feet, sending jets of fire spraying out and scorching the walls.

And then he grabbed Leo’s arm.

Leo howled in pain as Jesse’s glowing hand burned through his jacket and skin.

He dropped his bow, pain ripping through his body as Jesse shoved him to the ground and slammed both his hands into Leo’s chest.

The pain was blinding.

Even more horrible than when he’d lost his eye.

“JESSE, STOP!”

The heat dampened the tiniest bit.

Leo managed to look up, his head spinning.

Was…was that Axel, standing about six meters away, hands raised?

Everything hurt so bad.

“Jesse,” Axel said in a low, soothing voice.

Jesse squeaked and backed away like a frightened deer.

“Jesse,” Axel repeated, slowly moving closer, holding his hands out, trying to appear non-threatening. 

Leo realized in horror what was about to happen.

Anchorage.

When Phoebe had tried to calm Jesse down.

Granted, Leo hadn’t seen most of the aftermath, given Mapleshade had wormholed him out of there just before the explosion, but this wasn’t going to go well.

Axel would meet the same fate as Phoebe had, burned to death trying to help a suffering friend.

“Axel no,” Leo wheezed. “Run, it’s too late, he’s too far gone.”

Axel just kept cautiously approaching Jesse, who yelped and pawed at his head, his face twitching.

“You know who I am,” Axel murmured, “Don’t you?”

Jesse let out a guttural snarl.

“I’m gonna kill you!” he screamed, and Leo grimaced at the blast of heat.

Axel scowled. 

“Okay,” he snapped, holding both his arms out. “Then do it.”

Confusion passed across Jesse’s face, mingled with fear and anxiety, but he stood still, his body tense, flames licking up and down his arms, his eyes glowing like miniature suns.

“Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought,” Axel grumbled.

He took a step closer. 

“Listen,” Axel said quietly. “Whatever Leo did, leave him be and let him explain. I know your head’s fucked up, even I could tell from those CT scans Liv did that you’re obviously suffering from severe neurological damage. But I know Jesse, the Jesse I’ve been friends with for years, is still in there, so please, if he’s listening, I need him, okay?”

Jesse froze in his tracks, his eye twitching.

The fire rippling along his body slowly dimmed, until the flames in his left hand had died completely.

Axel slowly reached out.

Leo didn’t dare move.

And then Jesse very cautiously took Axel’s hand.

“Axel,” Jesse murmured, recognition sparking in his gaze. “You…you wanted to…a creeper statue. Something with fireworks. My…my friend?”

Axel’s face split into a grin.

“You back?” 

Jesse smiled softly, painfully. “I think… a little bit.”

And that was when the first missile flew into the hangar and detonated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So with quarantine and all that I’ve been having writer’s block and I’m going to probably be taking a break from this particular fanfic for a while so hang in there close good friends


	30. Into The Bunker

Jean slid off the couch and to the floor.

No.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

He’d felt it just as he’d woken up, and was trying to get his lightsaber to work when he felt the cold, sickening feeling.

“Andrew,” he choked out, trying not to hyperventilate. “No. No, god, please no.”

Something had happened.

Something bad.

Andrew wasn’t dead, but something was off; something was very wrong. 

They needed to get to Mustafar  _ now. _

“Jean?” Snowtuft asked, his eyes sparking with alarm. “Jean, what’s wrong?”

“Where are we?” Jean demanded.

They had to get to the surface, and fast, because not only could Jean sense that something was wrong with Andrew, but he was close by.

Very close by.

“We landed about an hour ago and Red went to check out the bunker,” Beau called from the cockpit. “What’s wrong?”

_ An hour ago! _

“Shit!” Jean yelled, leaping out of his seat.

He didn’t have that much longer until Tigerstar’s borrowed time finally ran out, and as much as he hated the idea, that man was Jean’s highly volatile ticket out of this mess. 

He ran and grabbed a blaster, given that his lightsaber (albeit being a better weapon) wasn’t exactly  _ reliable  _ yet, and then threw on his jacket and boots. 

Then he yelped at a stab of pain from the stitches in his wrist.

Growling in frustration, Jean grabbed a bacta patch and secured it around his forearm, grimacing. 

“Where do you think you’re going?”

Jean turned. 

He groaned in dismay.

Snowtuft had planted himself in front of the door, glaring over his glasses.

“Red told me,” he growled, his hair bushing out, not unlike a cat’s fur. “That you plan to wake  _ him,  _ and if that’s the case, then I can’t let you leave this ship.”

Jean swore. 

“Great, what else did she tell you?” He snapped, setting his blaster to stun. “My entire tragic past?”

Snowtuft frowned. “She did mention that you’re an alcoholic. That isn’t healthy.”

Jean gritted his teeth. 

“Listen,” he snarled, aiming his rifle at Snowtuft’s forehead. “The entire fucking universe as we know it is on the line here, and if you don’t get—“

Blue electricity suddenly crackled up Snowtuft’s body, and he collapsed on the floor with a yelp, unconscious. 

“—Out of my way?” Jean finished.

Beau was standing behind Snowtuft, scowling grimly, their spear in hand. 

“What I didn’t tell Red is that I saw the same vision,” they said, switching off the  _ stun _ setting on their spear. “Except when Mapleshade was banished, several different Tigerstars, Thistleclaws, and yes, Mapleshades, as well as other Dark Forest inhabitants, had their alternate reality selfs merged. Tigerstar managed to split his different selfs long enough to talk to each of us. And for a moment, I thought to myself, maybe freeing Tigerstar is a  _ terrible  _ idea! But then I remembered: I’m a naughty bitch.”

Jean just stared at them in shock. 

“Wait,” he blurted. “You’re helping me?”

Beau scoffed, lifting Snowtuft’s unconscious body onto the couch. 

“Of course I am. Mapleshade’s out of control, and it’s not like we have any other options. Besides, doppelgänger?”

Jean heaved a sigh. 

Right,  _ doppelgänger. _

“Thanks for reminding me of my personal recurring nightmare,” he grumbled. “Let’s go.”

“Also, I didn’t know you’re an alcoholic,” Beau remarked, following him off the  _ Ocelot.  _ “I think if we survive, you might want to see a therapist.”

Jean bit back a sharp retort.

“That’s a choice,” he grumbled. “I could stop drinking whenever I want.”

That was a blatant lie. His cravings hadn’t started again yet, like they had on the ride to Novac, but he had a feeling they would soon. 

And he had  _ hated _ them. 

Beau arched a skeptical eyebrow as they marched down the rocky trail towards a river of lava cutting through the smoky valley. 

“Fine!” Jean hissed, resisting the urge to punch them. “I’ll look into it.”

He really didn’t like Beau sometimes.

“Good,” Beau remarked, laying a hand on his arm with a serious expression on their face. “I may be a dangerous war criminal, but I still have feelings.”

Wait, scratch that,  _ most of the time. _

———

Pendergast’s bunker was creepy. 

The only entrance to the place was a tiny door on a ledge over a waterfall of boiling magma, and there must’ve been a bridge at one point that had been melted away. 

And now, Jean felt uncomfortable as he and Beau cautiously slipped down the hallway, weapons ready. 

He felt like he was disturbing something.

Something deadly. 

But he had a gut feeling that the fastest way to the Red Nexus was through the bunker, so he didn’t say anything. 

Then they made it to the main study area, which had obviously been ransacked by someone in a hurry. The shelves were ruined, the desk cracked, and books were strewn across the floor.

Beau made a face. “Somebody must’ve broke in before us and Red.”

Jean wiped the dust off one of the books and peered at the gold-embossed lettering on the cover. 

_ Manuscript 247–Archidae Fauna #2 _

“Wait, these aren’t books,” he said, tucking his flashlight behind his ear and picking up a volume. “They’re manuscripts. This looks like it’s all Pendergast’s unfinished work.”

He grabbed another manuscript  _ (Logistics of Wormholes, Revised Edition) _ and flipped through it. 

Sure enough, about halfway through the handwritten book, the pages went blank. 

They crept onward. 

They finally reached a door that led into what looked like a small laboratory or medical center, with wall racks full of decaying samples and what looked like healing potions. 

Beau silently picked up a bottle with what looked like dead fish in it, wrinkling their nose in disgust. 

Then Jean heard it. 

The click of metal against metal, and a soft voice nearby. 

“Hey, Lukas.”

Jean peered around the side door that was hanging slightly ajar. 

It was someone’s sleeping quarters. 

Petra was sitting in the sleeping niche in the wall, holding Pendergast’s journal in her lap, looking dismal. 

“Listen,” she said quietly, “I… I’m sorry about everything. I… I should’ve taken your word for it when you said getting involved with… with  _ her _ was a bad idea, and… and I found your box. But I don’t know if… if I can… do this. I don’t know if I can beat her again, okay?”

Jean held his breath.

“Jean's threatening to wake up Tigerstar,” Red continued, her brow furrowing. “I can’t let him. He says we’re fighting fire with fire, but I don’t trust him, Lukas. He’s like Jesse, but… wrong. I can’t place it, but he feels… weird. Bad, like he shouldn’t be here. Lukas, I don’t know what to do. Mapleshade’s back, Tigerstar isn’t gone, and…”

She trailed off, burying her face in her hands, letting out a quiet whimper. 

“Oh, what the hell, I can’t do this,” Red muttered irritably. “You’re dead. I’m talking to a fucking wall. This is fucking pointless, isn’t it.”

And then she got up.

Jean frantically ducked into a closet, hoping she hadn’t heard him. 

Then he saw Beau. 

They were still poking through the samples, unaware of their imminent discovery and the severe injuries that would undoubtedly follow. 

Jean clenched his jaw in fear and frustration. 

_ Hide!  _ He thought, remembering how he’d contacted Red in the first place.  _ Beau, you need to hide! She’s here! _

Beau froze.

Then they ducked behind the cabinet.

Red passed by, muttering in frustration, wiping her eyes, and as far as Jean could tell, she had missed the two of them completely. 

He waited until her footsteps had faded in the distance. Then he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. 

But then the footsteps started moving rapidly closer—

Wait, no, that was  _ two _ sets of footsteps, and Jean could hear the hum of a small set of repulsorlifts. 

He clapped a hand over his mouth. 

The door banged back open, and two people walked in, pulling a hover stretcher behind them. 

And Jean recognized them. 

“Hurry,” Luke said tensely, tapping his hand along the back wall. “We don’t have much time left. Lee, get Andrew on the bed there. I need to go back out and try and stall her.”

Then he rushed out, a frightened and unnerved look on his face. 

It took every ounce of willpower and self-control Jean possessed to stop from lunging out of his closet. 

On the hover stretcher, wearing a set of patient’s scrubs, was  _ Andrew,  _ who looked even paler than usual. He was lying completely still, hooked up to a small life support module, his upper lip smeared with blood that was sluggishly leaking out his nose. His ears were also leaking blood, which was soaking into his pillow and turning it a dull brown-red. 

He was lying so still Jean almost jumped to the conclusion that he was dead, but then he saw the faint rise and fall of his chest and how his eyes were moving under their lids, like he was dreaming. 

Then Jean saw the ragged, pinkish, healing scar over Lee’s throat, straight across his jugular. 

The bleeding suddenly made sense. 

“Damn it, Andrew!” He growled under his breath, trying to force back terrified and angry tears. “I told you this would—“

Lee suddenly whipped around, alarm flashing through his gaze. 

Jean bit back a curse. 

“This is gonna go great,” he muttered sarcastically, and stepped out of his hiding place and into the open. 

He realized he’d forgotten how fast Lee could move under pressure. 

Before Jean could blink, Lee had slammed the butt of his gun over his head, knocked him to the floor, and had the barrel pressed against his temple. 

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull the trigger,” he snarled. 

Jean swore. 

“Lee, it’s me!” He hissed. “It’s me! I’m the real Jean! That other guy—“

“—Almost killed me!” Lee retorted, his normally pleasant expression replaced with unbridled rage. “I know  _ exactly _ who you are, you bastard.”

“No!” Jean yelped, glancing frantically at the hover stretcher. “Lee, stop! Don’t—“

“He’s most likely gonna die!” Lee yelled, blinking back tears, jamming the gun sharply against Jean’s skull. “I don’t give a damn about magic or whatever, Andrew’s gonna die and it’s my fault because he healed me after you stabbed me and… and I don’t know who you are anymore! This is all your fault!”

_ This is all your fault. _

The words sent fury pulsing through Jean, and he saw red. 

It wasn’t like he was trying to shift the blame. He knew there was a lot he was responsible for, but this… 

This was  _ Mapleshade’s  _ doing. 

Not his. 

Jean lunged up and twisted the gun away from his head, slamming Lee against the wall by his throat. 

Lee cried out in pain. 

“You want proof?” Jean spat, his hands shaking with anger and fear. “You want proof that it’s me? You want proof that the guy who did that to you wasn’t me?”

Lee, who looked alarmed, slowly spoke. 

“Who was murdered?”

Jean froze up. 

“Murder?” He blurted. “What the hell happened? Who was it?”

Lee suddenly relaxed.

Sure, he still looked alarmed, but Jean was surprised that Lee had used something like that as a test question. 

Shadowfire was smart. He’d probably give a similar answer. 

“Was that a test?” Jean asked, a bit uncertain. “If it was, that was a dumb question because you know he’d say—“

Lee laughed weakly. “Heh. It is you.”

Jean did a double take. 

“You constantly second-guess everyone and get on their asses about being thorough,” Lee remarked. “If it was the other guy, I feel like he would’ve just given me a straight answer.”

Jean scowled. 

“Are you complaining?” He grumbled, letting Lee go. 

Lee just scoffed. 

“Alright, may I ask, what the  _ bloody hell _ just happened?” Beau snapped, sticking their head out from behind the cabinet, brushing dust bunnies out of their hair. 

Lee frowned. “Do I know you?”

“Oh, right, we haven’t met,” Beau added, flashing a smile. “I was having my legal things examined so you must not have seen much of me. I’m Beau. You are?”

“Lee,” Lee said. “Lee Porter.”

They awkwardly shook hands. 

Jean turned to the medical cot that Lee had moved Andrew to. 

He couldn’t tell what was wrong with him, but something in the air felt cold and  _ wrong _ and Jean was scared, he realized, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

He brushed Andrew’s hair away from his face, taking his hand, the metal one, and gently kissing his fingers. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, tears stinging in his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Lee said quietly, rubbing the line across his throat, a miserable look in his eyes. “We were trying to stop the other guy and I didn’t move fast enough, and… and he… well, it’s blurry but I think Andrew panicked and healed me.”

Jean felt something tighten painfully inside his chest. 

“No, this is on me,” he muttered. “I flipped out at him, then he stormed off and I got taken, and then—“

“Would you two shut up?” 

Jean glanced over his shoulder, and was met by Beau scowling threateningly at both of them. 

“It was his choice whether or not he did anything!” They snapped. “Honestly, I don’t understand you humans and your obsession with blaming everything on yourselves. It’s  his own  fault he’s like this, because he knew the risks and the consequences. Alright, you two might’ve had an influence on what events led up to this, but  _ still! _ Now, can we  _ please _ go find the Red Nexus before the Bird shows up and kills us all?”

There was an awkward pause. 

Suddenly, a hologram sparked to life in front of them, and they all jumped back in alarm (except for Andrew, who was still dead to the world).

Jean froze. 

It was  _ him. _

“Hi,” Pendergast said, grinning nervously and waving, his holographic body flickering slightly.


	31. Choices (Reprise)

“Who—“ Lee started to say, but Jean quickly held up a hand. 

“I know you’re freaked out,” the Pendergast hologram said, holding up his hands, “But everything’s cool. I’m an AI system. I’m basically a copy of his conscience, created with Altean alchemy. Not dark magic, don’t worry. How long has it been since my programming was set in hibernation? A decade? A century? A millennia?”

“A year,” Beau said, and Jean resisted the urge to kick them as they poked the hologram’s nose.

Pendergast winced. “Jeez, I thought things would be quiet for longer.”

Jean glanced at Lee, whose eyes were practically bugging out of his head in astonishment. 

“You’re… you’re a computer?”

“Yeah,” Pendergast said, looking a bit self-conscious. “Technically I’m a whole person saved on a holofile. Is… is Red still around, or…”

“She was,” Jean grumbled, remembering how she’d tried to lock him on the  _ Ocelot. _ “She left a few minutes ago.”

Pendergast’s grin drooped. 

“Oh,” he said quietly, picking at his jacket sleeve. “Who are you guys?”

“I’m Jean,” Jean said, regarding the hologram suspiciously. He’d had plenty of terrible experiences with AI programs gone rogue, but Pendergast… 

He didn’t actually seem too bad. 

“I’m Beau,” Beau said. “And this is Lee, who seems to be speechless.”

Jean scoffed in amusement when he saw Lee, who was still staring at Pendergast in amazement. 

“A whole person saved on a computer file,” the man mumbled.  _ “Amazing.” _

“And him?” Pendergast asked, jerking his thumb at Andrew, who muttered unintelligibly and twitched, then went deathly still again. 

“That’s Andrew,” Jean explained. “We don’t know what’s wrong with him but we know it isn’t good.”

Pendergast winced. “It looks like he overextended channeling powers.”

Jean felt a spark of hope.  _ He’d  _ had that happen before, and every time, he’d bounced back. Maybe—

“Check his connection,” he asked. 

Pendergast shrugged, and snapped his fingers. A holoscreen popped up in front of him, and he started tapping on it. 

Then he pulled up a diagram. 

“Good news and bad news,” he said hopefully. “He’s got a strong connection to his Lion, which definitely ups his chances of survival.”

“Bad news?” Jean asked, biting his lip. 

Pendergast made a face. “He’s connected to the Blue Lion, which is one of the most powerful but also the most taxing to summon and channel the power of. He must’ve tapped into his life force to heal you, Lee, judging by that scar. How long has he been like this?”

Jean glanced at Lee. 

Lee shrugged. “I dunno, about two days, give or take?”

Pendergast pursed his lips. 

“Oh. In that case, his odds of waking up, including the factor that he must’ve been aided by an external force if he didn’t die immediately from the strain, and his current physical state and any fatigue or injuries from fighting prior, are hovering at around 25 percent.”

Jean froze, processing the information. 

_ Andrew had a twenty-five percent chance of ever waking up again.  _

“Oh,” he mumbled. “Oh. Oh no.”

“There’s more good news,” Pendergast suggested hopefully. 

“Can it, glowing bastard,” Jean snapped, clenching his fists so hard that he felt his fingernails breaking his skin. 

He sucked in a shaky breath. 

No. 

No, this wasn’t real. 

He was still on the  _ Ocelot,  _ sleeping in his bunk in the medbay. 

“Jean?” Lee said quietly. “Jean, are—“

“SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!” Jean snarled, slamming his fist against one of the cabinets in anger.

He hardly registered the metal crumpling in his fist and the loud crash shattering sounds as jars full of solutions smashed on the floor, the samples in the jars scattering with the pieces of glass. 

Lee scrambled out of the way.

“Jean, calm down!” Beau yelled. “Chill! Stop! We don’t know what chemicals are in these jars and if this place explodes—”

“He’s gonna die!” Jean snapped, tears welling up in his eyes.

He could hardly process any of this, his mind completely swamped in panic and grief. Everything he’d been fighting for was for nothing. Andrew wasn’t going to make it, and—

“For fuck’s sake, I didn’t say he was  _ guaranteed _ to die,” Pendergast sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I just said it was very likely.”

“You’re not helping,” Lee broke in, his face pale with fear.

“You can access the Red Nexus from the library,” Pendergast said quickly. “Jean, you’re the only channeler here, so you’d have to use the Nexus’s high concentration of the Red Lion’s power to revive him. But… it comes at a cost.”

“I don’t care!” Jean snapped desperately. “How do I—”

“Jean, it’ll kill you.”

The room abruptly fell silent.

Jean could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears against the quiet and the faint hum of the sanitation systems sucking up the solutions and samples on the floor.

Pendergast looked tense, frightened.

“You don’t understand,” he continued softly. “The amount of power needed to bring him back is enough to disintegrate your cells, and you need a connection above 85 percent at the bare minimum to survive that. Your connection is only 62 percent. If you went through with this, it would literally burn you alive.”

Jean hesitated, weighing his options.

Andrew was… Andrew was everything to him, and he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he let Andrew die like this, cold and pale and unconscious on a medical cot. 

Jean didn’t care if it killed him. He couldn’t let Andrew down.

“I don’t care,” he blurted. “I’ll do it.”

Jean felt a cold, sinking feeling deep in his gut as the others stared at him in shock.

He’d just signed his own death warrant.

“What?” he snapped, struggling to keep from losing his composure. “Why are you all looking at me like that? He doesn’t deserve to die like this, and I’ll just collapse again if I lose the only other person I let myself be in love with! I can’t just let him die!”

“That’s what he said,” Lee murmured, an expression of pain and guilt on his face. “It’s blurry, but he kept going on about how he couldn’t lose me. Don’t do this.”

“Jean,” Beau hedged, “We came here for a reason, you know.”

Jean flinched. 

He was stuck on an impossible decision.

Either he could sacrifice himself and save Andrew from almost certain death, or he could raise Tigerstar and gamble that he had the strength to a) not get killed by the effort, and b) evade a potential double-crossing. 

Then, almost imperceptibly, the ground trembled under their feet. 

Jean suddenly sensed something in the Force, and some part of him knew it was coming from Luke—pain, fear, anger, all rolled up in a raging storm of fury that was coming from someone else. 

Luke was sending a distress call. 

_ Do what you came here to do, Orion! I can only keep her occupied for so long, and your time’s running out! _

“Jean?” Beau said nervously. “You’ve got that look on your face again.”

He growled in irritation. 

Things were  _ not _ going as planned. 

“Lee, wait here with Andrew,” Jean said, trying to locate where Luke’s call had come from. “Beau, we gotta do what we came to do. Andrew…”

He faltered, staring at Andrew’s pale face, his calm expression. 

“I know that you most likely can’t hear me,” Jean sighed, briskly walking up to the cot, and gave Andrew’s hands a squeeze. “On the off chance I come back and wake you up, I’m sorry, but I did what I had to do. If I don’t come back, though, I’ll see you on the other side, okay?”

He grimaced, forcing back tears that were threatening to spill over, and kissed Andrew’s cheek.

“Are we going, or what?” Beau yelled. 

———

They found the spiral staircase in the library that must’ve been hidden behind a secret panel. 

That is, before Luke had found it. 

Jean’s heart was pounding as they ran up as fast as they could, and then they emerged at the top of a mountain, and in the distance, he could see the rim of a volcano.

Panting, Jean pulled out his binoculars and peered at the Nexus. 

It was a small, almost Greek-style monument about the size of a football field with what might have been an altar in the center, and it was positioned on a tiny rocky island in the center of the boiling crater of lava. 

The whole place seemed to have a scary red glow hovering around it. 

“How’d you get that spear, anyway? Jean asked Beau as they picked their way down the steep slope. 

Beau winced. “Long story,” they said, pursing their lips and looking away. 

Jean raised an eyebrow. 

He was no stranger to long stories, probably because he had many of his own that he could tell. 

“I was an alchemist on Pendergast’s team,” Beau sighed. “I wanted to be the greatest the universe had ever seen, but my problem was that I got jealous. I kept looking at Pendergast and Allura, who were the best of the best, the strongest and most powerful of all, knowing I’d never be their equal, and… and I acted on it. I let the Dark Forest into my dreams, and I was their double agent for a while, but then I realized that the people I was working for were horrible and I turned on them in the great battle. But the council still tried to imprison me for treason, and I ran away. And so I’ve lived alone, coping with the terrible things I did and the fact that I am a wanted war criminal.”

Jean winced. 

“I get the whole jealousy thing,” he murmured as they made it to level ground. “I’ve dealt with it before. It’s good that you saw where you went wrong in the end. Even if it almost got you killed.”

Beau smiled faintly. “Thanks.”

Jean laughed halfheartedly, drawing his lightsaber. 

“Let’s go wake up the evil bastard to end all other evil bastards,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “Mapleshade’s got a big storm coming.”


	32. Everything Looks Like It’s Going To Be Okay For About Five Minutes

_ Andrew didn’t know when his consciousness returned, but when it did, he was lying on the ground.  _

_ He groaned. _

_ His whole body ached, like he’d rolled down a rocky slope in his underwear.  _

_ Then he got a glimpse of his surroundings, and he almost passed out again from shock.  _

_ He wasn’t sitting on the cold tile floor in the hallway.  _

_ He was sitting on the ground, which appeared to be an impossibly massive plane of black stone so smooth and polished it was like a mirror, reflecting the starry black void of space above him, but there was no moon. It stretched out as far as he could see on every side, with no end in sight. _

_ Andrew glanced at his hands.  _

_ He yelped in surprise, quickly looking down at his reflection.  _

_ He was  _ glowing.

_ His whole body glowed an unearthly blue, but the scary part was that it was strangely translucent. _

_ “Where am I?” He blurted.  _

_ “The astral plane,” a hauntingly familiar voice echoed behind him.  _

_ Andrew spun around. _

_ He almost had a heart attack when he saw the man—or rather, the kid—standing there, also glowing and almost insubstantial-looking.  _

_ “J—Jamie?” He stammered.  _

_ He’d watched Jamie die on a medical table eight years ago. Even if he had survived that fateful day, he would’ve been in his late twenties by now.  _

_ But Jamie hadn’t changed. He looked exactly the same as he had the day he’d died, all the way down to his metal leg. _

_ Still nineteen and boyish-looking.  _

_ “H—how… how’re you…” Andrew spluttered, his throat tightening.  _

_ Jamie chuckled, patting his shoulder.  _

_ “Hey kid,” he said. “It’s okay. I get it, you’re pretty freaked out, but here, everything’s okay. You can come home now.” _

_ “But you’re dead!” Andrew snapped, anger and grief shooting through him at the memories. “You died in front of me, I watched you die, this isn’t possible—“ _

_ “Andrew, buddy, so are you.” _

_ Andrew froze.  _

_ No.  _

_ He was dead? _

_ “You died,” Jamie continued. “Your soul separated from your body, and you’re here now. What you did back there, saving Lee’s life, the amount of energy you drew on put you in a coma, and… well, I guess the scientific way to describe it is that your brain activity has stopped. You’re dead.” _

_ Andrew swallowed hard.  _

_ He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.  _

_ Oh god…  _

_ Jacob, Lee, May, Gill, Paige.  _

_ He was gone, and they’d never see him again, and he couldn’t help them.  _

_ And Jean…  _

Jean!

_ Jean didn’t know what had happened, and Andrew didn’t even know if he was still alive.  _

_ Jamie smiled warmly.  _

_ “Andrew,” he said, holding out his hand to him. “It’s time to come home.” _

_ “No,” he blurted. _

_ Jamie faltered. “Come again?” _

_ “I can’t just leave them behind!” Andrew snapped, staring down what was left of his late friend. “I can’t just…  _ abandon _ them! Of all people, you should get it!” _

_ Jamie gave him a confused look. “I don’t think it works that way—“ _

_ “Yeah it is,” Andrew growled.  _

_ This place was rich with powerful energy, the essence of the spirit he could channel.  _

_ He could feel it, just below the surface.  _

_ “I’m at a crossroads,” he said, to no one in particular, not quite sure where the information was coming from. “I’m not dead, I’m somewhere in between and I have a choice to make.” _

_ Jamie flinched. “Andrew—“ _

_ “I can go with you,” Andrew mused, “And see my family again and be done with my suffering and be happy again, or I can deal with the pain of waking up and save my friends, and I think I know what I’m choosing.” _

_ “Wait, Andrew, don’t—“ _

_ “And you’re not Jamie,” he finished, tears stinging in his eyes as his hands started to glow. “I’m sorry, but Jamie’s been dead for a long time. You’re just a figment of my imagination. And I’ve had enough of my friends not being themselves.” _

_ Jamie made a very un-Jamie-like snarl.  _

_ “Think about what you’re doing,” he growled, tensing. “You’re losing your last chance at being happy again.” _

_ Andrew laughed harshly.  _

_ “I am happy,” he retorted. “I have my friends and my new family to get me through this, and I have to go back for them. Now go AWAY!” _

_ He shoved his glowing hands against Jamie’s chest. _

_ Jamie’s glowing form cracked, like bulletproof glass getting hit by a rock, and then shattered. _

And then Andrew jolted awake, choking and gasping.

He barely registered the gurney, his arms held in place by straps, his patient’s scrubs and the beeping of medical equipment before he started to panic, frantically wrenching through his bonds and almost falling to the floor.

“Woah! Holy shit! Calm down, Andrew, you’re safe!”

He finally managed to register where he was.

He was on a medical cot in what looked like a high-tech infirmary, and he was hooked up to a life support module and a heart monitor (which was going crazy), and none other than  _ Lee _ was leaning over him, a hand on his metal wrist.

Andrew almost sobbed with relief when he saw how the massive bleeding gash in his throat had been replaced by a large and reddened but healed scar.

“You survived!” he gasped, lunging forwards and flinging his arms around him.

“Yeah,” Lee said weakly. “Barely. I’m more concerned about you right now though. You better not die on me like that again, okay?”

Andrew burst out half-laughing, half-crying, burying his face in Lee’s shoulder.

He never wanted to let go.

“God, I’m so sorry for scaring you like that,” he mumbled, sniffling. “I’m so sorry. I just panicked, and I couldn’t lose you…”

Suddenly he remembered something else.

“Jean!” he blurted, hoisting himself off his cot and ignoring the soreness in his limbs. “Where’s Jean? Have you found him? Any word from him? Any signs?”

Lee laughed.

“Yeah, actually. He’s trying to save the universe, but he’s on the same planet.”

Andrew brightened.

“Where’s my gun?” He demanded, yanking off his scrubs and rushing over to the door. “I need to get out there and help his stupid reckless ass!”

Then he realized he didn’t have any underwear on.

Lee gave him a pained look, his face practically glowing with embarrassment. 

“Uh, in there,” he said, pointing to a duffle bag in the corner “Also… you might want to put on some pants.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Andrew grumbled, grabbing the bag and putting on the change of clothes inside, as well as the pair of boots (which fit him perfectly).

Then he strapped the pistol on his hip, and was about to leave when Lee grabbed his arm. 

“I’m coming with you.”

“It’s too dangerous!” Andrew protested, wincing. “I’m an actual enhanced supersoldier. You have noodle arms.”

“I do  _ not!” _ Lee retorted, scowling. “Come on, Andy, for old time’s sake.”

“You know I hate it when you call me that,” Andrew grumbled, shaking his head in dismay, knowing that there was no way he could possibly change Lee’s mind. “Aw hell. For old time’s sake.”

———

They made it down the hall and around the corner when they saw the soldiers. 

Two men with rifles, standing guard. 

Andrew froze, holding out his arm, and Lee stopped next to him. 

“You believe it?” One of the men, who looked about thirty and had a ragged mustache, grumbled. “One minute we’ve got this nice, stable job guarding the facility in Red Mesa, the next we’ve got laser guns and we’re on a lava planet.”

The other, who seemed about the same age, and was bald, scoffed. “I’m just glad that we don’t have to deal with goddamn endermen anymore.”

“Are you kidding?” Mustache snorted. “I feel like there’ll be even worse things.”

That was when Andrew saw their armor. 

On their breastplates, in stark white lettering against dark kevlar, were four letters that made Andrew freeze up. 

_ PAMA.  _

He bit his lip, forcing down his terror. 

News must’ve found its way to Mapleshade that more people wanted either him or Jean (or both of them) dead. 

Andrew slowly drew his knife. 

“You hear about the facility break-in near Ground Town?” Baldy remarked. “How that Pandora kid snuck in and stole some shit? With the other one… what do the devs call him again?”

“Obsidian Fury?” Mustache asked. “Ned, everybody knows about that. I just can’t believe he was insane enough to do that. If I were him, I wouldn’t be setting a foot within ten miles of a facility. Did you see how big the casualty report was?”

Baldy winced. “Yeah. I’d hate to have to fight the Pandora subject.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Andrew growled coldly, stepping out from around the corner, ignoring Lee’s frantic head shaking. 

The two soldiers froze. 

Finally Mustache raised his gun to fire, but much too late. Andrew threw his hunting knife and the man went down, choking on blood and steel. 

Baldy screamed and bolted. 

Andrew lunged, catching the man by the collar, threw him into the wall, and snapped his neck effortlessly. 

He turned back to Lee. 

Lee was staring, his eyes wide with shock, his gun sitting limply in his hand. 

“Wow,” he blurted. “That was…”

“Don’t ask,” Andrew grumbled, taking Mustache’s rifle and slinging it over his shoulder. 

Lee shrugged and grabbed Baldy’s. 

Then they set off down the hall. 

Andrew could see the logic behind Mapleshade enlisting in PAMA’s help and resources. They knew how to survive, how to spy, and how to manipulate, and they had lots of resources and weapons at their disposal, and most of all, those people were desperate to escape the fallout to the point where if offered a chance by an actual demon, they’d likely take it. 

Which made them perfect minions.   
  


  
And best of all, they had a bone to pick with Andrew, he thought to himself as they came to a stop at a junction in the hall.

“Which way?” Andrew asked, stopping at the junction. 

“The library is this way,” Lee said. “You missed the whole hologram thing. Let’s go, and fast.”

Andrew faltered. 

“Hologram?” He asked. 

“Long story.”

“Ah.” 

Lee started to say something, but he was cut off by a bout of wheezy coughs.

He grimaced and cleared his throat. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I think I might be catching a cold or something. Horribly scratchy throat.”

And so they kept going, until they reached a large library that was in total disarray, and full of PAMA soldiers and scientists, who were collecting and sorting the books. 

There was an awkward pause when several of the workers saw them. 

“Run to that staircase,” Andrew said. 

Then all hell broke loose, and Lee bolted across the room into the stairwell as Andrew laid down covering fire, then sprinted after, Lee shooting back from behind the wall. 

They bolted up the stairs. 

They climbed maybe three or four stories up before they finally made it to the surface, a tiny room roughly hewn into the side of a mountain peak with the door hanging ajar. 

“Oh god, my legs are  _ killing  _ me,” Lee groaned, hauling himself up the last few steps.

Andrew had a disjointed memory of escaping the facility with the  _ Hermes  _ file, how Jean had triggered a massive avalanche to cover their escape. 

He chuckled grimly. 

They ran out the door, running for the volcano in the distance. 

Andrew didn’t know  _ how _ he knew that that volcano was where he needed to be, but he had a feeling in his gut. 

He  _ knew _ it was where they had to go. 

“ANDREW, LOOK OUT!”

Suddenly Lee was tackling him from behind and a boulder the size of a jeep sailed over them. 

Had Andrew been standing, that thing would’ve taken his head clean off. 

“Oh, shit,” he blurted.

Ahead of them, in a small valley, just above a river of lava, there were two figures locked in combat. 

And Andrew recognized them. 

One of them was Luke, looking a bit worse for wear as he frantically parried attacks from his assailant with his twin lightsabers, the purple blades clashing violently against blue. 

The other figure took Andrew a moment to process. 

But then he recognized her as Red, that angrier alternate reality version of Paige, viciously attacking Luke with a blue lightsaber in one hand and a glowing golden double-edged sword in the other, her eyes practically glowing with murderous fury. 

Then Andrew realized her eyes actually  _ were  _ glowing; bright red. 

Luke’s were, too, but purple. 

And the whole valley was shaking and trembling with their violent battle, hence the flying boulder. 

They looked like they were trying to tear each other apart, which was odd. 

Weren’t those two good friends?

“I can’t let you do this!” Red screamed, kicking Luke in the chest, sending him flying into the rocks. “It’s too risky!”

“Lay off me!” Luke spat, lunging back to his feet. “We’re out of options!”

Andrew winced as Red hit the dirt with a nasty crunching sound, but she was back up in a second, blood gushing from her nose. 

“Ouch,” Lee muttered. 

“There’s  _ always  _ another option!” Red yelled, her chest heaving, balanced precariously on the edge of the shoreline, right above the lava. 

Luke’s expression faded from angry to something bitter as he gazed sadly down at her, his sabers raised to fight. 

“It’s over,” he panted, clearly tired. “Red, I have the high ground.”

“Oh, don’t pull that shit,” Red snarled, pacing like a caged lion. “If you go through with this, you’re gonna end up killing more people than you’re trying to save. I can’t let that happen.”

“We need to make sacrifices!” Luke retorted. “And you’re severely overestimating that number.”

“Oh,  _ bull-fucking-shit!” _

Andrew was confused. He didn’t even know what they were fighting about, much less why Red was so pissed. 

He’d never seen her this angry. 

“You know I’m gonna do everything to stop this,” Red growled, stopping in front of Luke. “What’re you gonna do if I don’t back off? You gonna kill me?”

“If it comes to that,” Luke said bitterly. 

Red  _ laughed. _

Then she dropped both her sword and her lightsaber in the dirt, smiling as if she was overjoyed, but the pain and betrayal and grief in her eyes said otherwise. 

Luke looked startled. 

“Then fucking go ahead!” She yelled, holding out her arms. “I’ve been wanting to die for years, Skywalker! You’d be doing me a fuckin’ favor! Kill me! Kill me and live with the memory! Then tell the stars that you  _ won.” _

“Lee,” Andrew said quietly, horror slowly spreading through him. “I think we’re gonna have to intervene.”

He had a feeling that if they didn’t do something, someone would die. 

Luke sighed in defeat. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I’m so sor—“

“Now!” Andrew shouted, just as Red snatched up the lightsaber and rushed Luke head-on. 

He ran down the valley and tacked Red to the ground. 

For a terrifying few seconds, Andrew struggled with her for the lightsaber, but he finally managed to wrench it out of her hand and kick her in the gut. 

Red went staggering away, snarling. 

Andrew grunted in pain, his ribs aching from getting punched by that wicked metal fist of hers (geez, that was  _ four _ people he’d met who’d lost an arm), pinning the lightsaber under his body. 

“Andrew?” Luke blurted. “You’re alive?”

“I’m surprised too, okay?” Andrew growled, clambering back to his feet, rubbing his jaw. Even with her flesh hand, Red had a brutal uppercut. 

Luke, who was bleeding from his mouth and nose, as well as from several wounds that looked like cauterized knife slashes, stared at him in astonishment. 

“Damn, I thought you were a goner.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Andrew grumbled. “I know, I miraculously survived after I almost exhausted my life force to heal my best friend, all that bullshit. Where’s Jean? Give it to me straight.” 

Luke scoffed. “I’ve never been good at that.”

An awkward beat of silence. 

Well, mostly silent, except for Lee, who was attempting to fend Red off. 

Then Andrew realized. 

“Did you seriously just make a fucking  _ gay joke _ in the middle of a life or death situation?” 

Luke just snorted in amusement and turned, dashing up the hill. 

“Son of a bitch, he did,” Andrew muttered to himself, breaking into a run, following the other man. “Lee! Come on!”

Lee dashed up next to him, gasping for breath. 

“Oh, jeez,” Andrew remarked, wincing at the bleeding cut of Lee’s forehead and the bruises blooming on his skin. “You still okay?”

“Great,” Lee said with a grimace. “She almost broke my neck, but luckily I managed to hit her hard enough to rattle her pretty good. We should get moving before she wakes up.”

Andrew winced. 

He’d never imagined having to fight Red before. She’d been nice to him, albeit cagey and rather distrustful, but he liked her. 

He felt bad having to do this. 

Then they crested the hill, and Andrew would’ve fallen into the volcano had Luke not grabbed the back of his belt. 

“Shit!” Andrew hissed. 

That had been too close. 

“Watch yourself,” Luke said, his voice tense, his sweat-matted hair stuck to his forehead, his expression grim. “The Nexus is right in front of us, and it looks like Jean made it.”

There was a thick metal cable tied across the chasm, to a tiny, rocky island in the exact center of the crater where a temple stood. 

“What now?” Andrew asked nervously. 

He’d never seen lava before. It looked like fire in liquid form, and he had a feeling that even the briefest contact with the molten rock could kill. 

He could feel the heat from up here. 

Luke smirked, twirling his lightsabers in his hands. 

“We climb over.”

And so they did, using the cable to cross over, and Andrew resisted the urge to kiss the dirt when his feet were back on solid ground. 

Luke had just used his lightsabers like a zipline and slid down. 

The rest of them had to climb hand over hand, which meant almost falling several times and raw, blistered palms. 

That had been one of the most terrifying experiences in Andrew’s life so far. 

He peered around the temple. 

He realized, with horror, it was empty. 

“Jean!” He yelled on impulse. “Jean, where are you! Are you here?”

“Hush!” Luke snapped, shooting him a vicious glare. “If something’s guarding the Nexus we don’t wanna deal with it!”

“Oh, he’s right,” a voice rang out from the dais at the end of the room. “You three don’t wanna deal with me, not in the state you’re in right now.”

Andrew froze. 

No. 

No, no, no. Not again. 

He was standing on the dais. One of his eyes was pitch black, his pupil glowing yellow. The other looked normal, except his pupil was slit-shaped, like a cat’s. He had a strange metal spear in hand, and a nasty bruise on his glowing eye. 

But it was him. 

Shadowfire. 

And sprawled on his stomach on the dais in front of him, only half-conscious and groaning in pain… 

Andrew clapped a hand over his mouth in horror. 

_ Oh god.  _

  
“Oh, you have got to be  _ fucking _ kidding me right now,” he choked out.

**Author's Note:**

> Also in case you were wondering here’s the ages of some of the main characters just to provide a frame of reference 
> 
> Jean: 25  
> Jesse: 24  
> Petra: 25  
> Red: 26  
> Luke: 28  
> Andrew: 23  
> Lukas: 24  
> Beau: 22  
> Leo: 24  
> Cal: 19  
> Merrin: 20  
> Hawkfrost: 21 (physical age)  
> Quentin: 23


End file.
